My daughter is a wreck. The cat has been missing for three days. Honestly, I never really cared much for it, but her tears -they break my heart. Now if only I could get Grandpa to stop repeating over and over, “I’m telling ya… A bobcat gone and got it!”

With each dogged proclamation, the poor girl’s wailing goes up another octave. Just look at her go. By God she can burn through some tissues (her mother was the same).
And when the heck did he lose tact?

Somewhere inside this old crotchet gibbering about ‘lurking prey’ there hides the father of my youth. John Harrison was a man of vice-grip handshakes and unflappable determination. Of stoic encouragement and concrete fortitude. Long gone.

I remember when, years ago, I fell into the Red River while trying to juggle my fishing pole –as well as the six-week-old mutt pup I had chosen from Farmer Glenn’s litter only a day before. John Harrison surely saved his son that day.

I can still picture a tree trunk arm blotting out the sun as it breached those frigid waters and pulled me clear. Coughing and sputtering, I clenched fistfuls of dirt and clay for proof of life. The pup, of course, was gone. We hadn’t even named her yet.

“It’s okay, son”, he calmly assured. “Through loss we learn to live. Through loss we learn to love.” The words didn’t mean much to me at the time, but gave me pause all the same.
Oh for some of his reassurances now!

Because, see, something caught my eye just now. As my daughter’s tears have continued unabated, outside, beyond the shed and past those twisted branches of the Bur oak, I see crows are gathering. Those damned crows. Perhaps the Old Man was right.

Ezy reading is out every month...