Thaw

We stand on Pebble Beach at Little Sister Bay. Under a brooding March sky. Under a shroud of lamenting gray clouds. We watch the dark waves of Green Bay advance to a rhythmic dirge. We watch them usher down masses of ice that are sick to death of the cold.

“Next please,” call the waves to the ice, dashing them on the rocks. Each frozen piece choosing a headstone for winter. Our family stands here at the brink, in the cold wind, watching this ceremony with some reverence. Winter giving way to spring. Even death must die.

We get front row seats. And, a quickening. My wife, our four year-old daughter, and I throw white rocks into the waves to try to pick off the ice before it ever reaches shore. Gulls circle. We are Israelites pitching rocks at the retreating Philistines, after David has knocked Goliath out stone cold. “Yeah, you better run!” we yell, after a quick look over our shoulders, and one last check for the giant’s pulse. “You never had a chance!” we laugh. Our daughter does a victory march, stones clattering in her wake. Our nine month-old son chants. We are full of life.

A blast of northerly wind shakes our bones and causes us to burrow into our coats. But, it’s only a death rattle. Pretty sure.

Yes, winter still lingers. Cold is all around. We don’t deny it can even be beautiful and dignified. We just know it’s not the end. Pretty sure.

She doesn’t know it today, marching on the beach, but five years from now our daughter will weep in the chapel foyer at her great-grandmother’s funeral. One half of the tears will be for her gentle, grace-filled Grandma Bruch, who wore winter so well. The other half of her tears will be for the bitter realization that everyone she knows will die, too, someday. Her mother, her father, her brother, and all the rest. “Why do people have to die?” she will choke out. Maybe more than half of her tears will be allotted for that.

She doesn’t know it today, but this girl will be stunned at the audacity of death. Just like everyone of us had been at one time. But her faith-filled great-grandma will go quietly to the brink, with confidence that it is not the end. She will go with a God-given white stone tucked in the pocket of her black dress.

Back at Little Sister Bay, our four year-old skips and gallops, stooping to examine stones along the way. She knows that she has every good reason for a joyful victory march. And, we have every good reason to join her, accompanied by the percussion of ice on the rocks. A gust of wind protests, and we give our coats a hitch out of respect. But back up the road, in the woods, the trillium is signing winter’s death certificate. Giants are being felled. Even death is dying.