It’s day for being on the water, not in the woods. Aki and I should be in the canoe, spoiling the salt chuck’s perfect reflection of mountain, fog and sky. Only one feeding fish, a trout or maybe char, distorts the mirror. Behind, Lynn Canal is just as flat and calm beyond where water spilling down the salt chuck falls loses the energy to disturb.

I’m sad, but reassured by the sound made by water spilling over the falls. This cusp of sea and lake, today simply black and white, is the needed place to pray for a family who just lost a child. Here I can trust in a welcoming heaven, hold a child’s wake.