Yesterday I was able to make my memorial paddle in your honor, a paddle I try to make each year between Mother’s Day and your death day in late May, now fourteen years ago.  When weather and time permit, I like to make this almost-annual paddle out to Wild Horse Island on Flathead Lake, a place you always wanted to see; yet for health reasons, this visit remained an unfulfilled desire. I would like to tell you about the experience in the simply human hope that our separate worlds might touch in some way, perhaps as gently as two twigs on a cherry tree. I am still writing you an occasional letter.

When I arrived at my launch site, wind poured off the Mission Mountains and ran through the strait between Melita and the big island. Conditions were brisk but safe. After crossing the strait, I approached the island and paused to watch a couple of Bighorn ewes nibbling on fresh plants and bending to the water to drink. They were so shaggy in the remnants of their winter coats that I could not tell if they had delivered their lambs.

After paddling up the west shore of Wild Horse I rounded the point and dropped into placid conditions in Skeeko Bay. After pulling my boat onto some driftwood and out of reach of rising water, I began to hike up the trail to the saddle. I was astonished by the quiet. In the first few hundred yards I heard one meadowlark and the wings of a robin. At the saddle I turned left onto what Fish, Wildlife and Parks calls “The Heritage Trail,” a path leading to some of the last signs of a brief agricultural presence on the island. Not far along I found the horses for which the island is named, but I did not approach. One of the horses swayed in an odd fashion. As the horse was not under stress, it may have been ill.

After I gained some elevation, I chose my own path through tall grasses along the edge between meadow and forest, hoping to find an animal trail and see a greater variety of flowers. As I walked along, I picked you an imaginary bouquet. As there are no rhododendrons and roses like you grew when you lived in in the Seattle area, I found the spring blossoms of the mountain west—arrowleaf balsamroot, larkspur, lupine, long-plumed avens, camas and the occasional shooting stars on the north-facing slope and forest edge. Near the top of the island I sat down and dangled my legs over a cliff. I had a perfect vantage point to look for more Bighorn sheep if they came into the small clearing far below, but they were elsewhere and not on the move. I ate my lunch and listened to the wind.

On the way down and back toward Bluebird I found scatterings of white bones in the spaces between tall clumps of fescue. On the island deer and sheep must simply die of old age as they are rarely pursued by predators like lions and bears who visit the island on occasion. Returning to the bay I gave a pair of eagles on a massive new nest a wide berth, hoping not to disturb them. I fear they may have nested in a location too frequently visited by humans and may not be able to bring their brood to the point of fledging.

Back at my boat I changed clothes for paddling in warmer conditions but knew I would face a strong headwind. I slipped back into the water grateful for the gift of my life, that I am still able to do these things at this late stage of my own life, and that I spent another day thinking about ways you taught me to appreciate the beauty of the world without ignoring its tragedies. In whatever way such a thing could come to you, I wish you a long slope of yellow flowers and the silence of birds on the glide. Love, Gary