Thunderstorms, some heavy during the morning hours, then skies turning partly cloudy during the afternoon. High around 85F. Winds SSE at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 100%. 1 to 2 inches of rain expected..
A few clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 68F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph.
Updated: September 22, 2023 @ 5:07 am
Three years ago, we scattered my mom’s ashes in Bay Lake, in north-central Minnesota. It’s what she wanted, and so my dad carried what was left of her down to the dock and onto the pontoon.
We cut the engine in the shallow water of Rainbow Bay; Dad said a few words, and…a bald eagle watched us from the tallest tree on the east end of Malkerson’s Island. We felt as if that was Mom, or it was Nature representing Mom, or Mom telling us through Nature that she was there.
We also scattered some down by Mrs. Hall’s, where Mom and Dad took us fishing all those years growing up, and right out in front of our dock. Later, after an afternoon rain shower, Angie and I went out in a fishing boat and, as I cast out to the shelf with my white single-spin, a rainbow appeared, connecting Rainbow Bay to Mrs. Hall’s. She took a picture; that picture hangs in our living room. I still wonder about that rainbow.
Last week, we carried Dad’s ashes down to that same dock, cut the engine in Rainbow Bay. My brother and I scattered him in the same spot. I believe it was his grandson Jake who was talking about Dad’s love for Mom, when two eagles soared overhead.
They were…playing. There’s no other way to describe it.
They were relatively young, so neither had the white head yet. I presume one was a male and the other a female, and that they were a pair. This was not a fight. It was clearly a couple having fun with each other. They soared together, circled around us several times, and then left when we did.
My son Brett, a devoted agnostic, later said he was left with wonder about the meaning of that moment. Was it Mom and Dad? Was it Nature showing us that they were OK, that they were together? Was it something more than that?
I don’t know. But he pointed out in a poem he wrote that day that eagles mate for life, at about age 5, which is also when the male’s head turns white. Considering their typical life span, 5 in eagle years is equivalent to the age of my parents when they first met, my mom just out of college and my dad heading into his last year of it, in Madrid.
His third stanza:
“...a lone eagle, flying above a tree on a small lake next to a small town, is lost,” he wrote. Half of him is missing, or not yet found.
I guess it’s appropriate that it’s the next generation who pointed this out. They’ve been coming up to this lake every year of their lives, just as I have, just as my dad did.
So now I think of that one eagle, three years ago, in an entirely different light. That wasn’t Mom. That was Dad. Waiting.
He waits no more. They’re together, soaring. The circle goes on, unbroken.
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