Lamb’s Creek is a long, lazy, cool collection of spring water and rain, dappled with sunlight and shadow.
For thousands of years, like an aged serpent, it’s glistening, dark body has undulated through the forest and tall grass fields, polishing stone and shifting sand.
Small, shimmering fish, dart in it’s shallows; larger, older, colder bodied things lurk, deep under the wet limestone banks, waiting.
My mothers family settled along the branch more than a century ago.
For generations, the creek was a place to hunt and a refuge from the permeating presence of Summer.
When I was nineteen, I chose a Memorial Day to return and feel the waters, and maybe collect a few geodes that had been washed from their places of birth.
Heat had come early that particular May. The Cottonwood trees were releasing their progeny; the young, suspended on the sultry air, innumerable in the afternoon light, were slowly making their way to the surface of the shade covered stream.
I followed them to water, jumped from the high bluff that was covered with fern and moss, and sank my feet into the cool with the others.
Earlier in the day, after visiting my parents, I had brought a kitten home to my young wife; she quickly, without words pulled the cat into her arms, where recently, had been an erroneously trusted friend.
When I was younger, my father told me many times, "You will have many friendly acquaintances, but few, true friends."
He could have been sharing lessons from experience, but, maybe he was offering counsel for behaviors I was exhibiting.
What may father had said about friends and friendship was so very true, but I would be long in understanding it.
The Sunday morning that my sister began my religious indoctrination, I watched my brothers and my father pull away; their bodies, blown in the wind and jostled, disappeared into the distance as I stood on the sidewalk, shackled.
I knew where they were going, and I knew what they would find, I had been with them before and relished the shared experience.
The wonderful, wild, and weird, were substantiated when our eyes met across the encounters between us; the fears, we each understood, were lessened and courage festered in our hearts as we stood, shoulder to shoulder, facing the unknown.
But, those times were over, and they, all too soon, would be gone as well.
I would spend much of my life searching to get back into that green truck with the souls I had known.
I faced the unknowns of my adolescence with a group of acquaintances; hooligans who are now found in addiction or prison, but one, a shining example, was a friend, a surrogate for the brotherly relationship I was missing.
Together we honed our talents, raided pantries, sought beautiful girls and their treasures held, shared stolen cigarettes between gulps of similarly acquired alcohol, wondered at the stars over frosted stubble in broad corn fields, endured punishments, and laughed at it all, but eventually, and unfortunately, we were to part ways.
As a young adult, continuing my quest, I suffered an acquaintance as a friend. As Lamb’s Creek, he stole through my life, eventually wearing and separating lands that were joined. I survived the encounter, wounded, with a religious respect for my fathers advice.
The concurrence left me bitter and guarded, but unconsciously I continued to prospect for my elusive brothers.
After Lamb’s Creek I found associations, for a short period in time. We shared an occupation as soldiers, and with the duties, shared many memorable times.
Those links, often called Brothers In Arms are scattered now, among the grass, under the wind. We drift in and out with one another through phone calls and letters place by me. Not real friends, but friendly, they are there, each validating our life experience.
Upon reaching middle age, the yearning subsided; I had experienced most of the grand events expected in this life, many without the presence of a proponent. The close confidants that held the proof of my life together were fewer, and further away, and frankly, I was no longer interested in parceling what was left to others. What more was to come, I was willing to face alone.
Yet, a few years ago, seasons changed, along with the currents of the wind, and like the Summer Snow on Lamb’s Creek, strangers blew into my life; serendipitously drifting beside me. Being apprehensive and tired, I held them warily at a distance, as acquaintances, but, they, being seeds of something I lost long ago, found purchase near me and have grown into entities that I am happy to know, and they, swaying in the wind with me, shoulder to shoulder have become more than friends.
They are my brothers and I am thankful to share what's left of this life with them.
