My very healthy father died unexpectedly at Thanksgiving in 2023. In what turned out to be the last 3 1/2 years of his life, he and I went on a lot of hikes. My parents lived close to the Northwest Branch of the Anacostia River, and, in the times of pandemic lockdown, it was a good place to get outside. It was close by, quiet, and not crowded.
I went back to our favorite trailhead for the first time on a sunny, windy Sunday in March 2024. (Once or twice there was another car there and my dad would joke about whether we’d be able to find a spot.) We walked this stretch of trail over and over, and watched it change.
During one of the pandemic winters, there was a big winter storm and some trees fell, and other trees and debris got stuck in them, and the stream found a way around, cutting farther into the bank, pushing into the broad sandy flat at the bottom of the ravine. After a heavy rain the banks would crumble more and more trees would lose their grip on the sandy soil. Every time we went, it had changed.
I cried that day in March, nearly two years ago now, because my dad wasn’t there to see the changes in the log jam. It was even wider. Even more trees had fallen in.
Now it’s probably been a year since I’ve been to visit the log jam myself. Who knows what has changed since then. Somehow, the world keeps going without us.
Photos: Helen Fields, obviously
