The Healing Path

The weather is warm today, as I start out on my walk along the Willamette River. I'm trying to get back into a routine of walking, of breathing fresh air, to help keep my mood up. It's been just over six months since my partner passed away, and I've found myself frequently avoiding walking along this river path. In our town, the river is graced by bike paths on both sides that take you through wetland ponds, tall trees, small neighborhoods and more. It is just a block from where my partner, Ishaq, and I lived and loved together for ten and half years. Where he would go for his nightly bike rides, and where we would jump into the river and float down the rapids on hot days.

The path is full of memories. Here is the fence where, in late summer, we picked blackberries. Here is the stretch of rapids where our canoe tipped over, trapping me underneath and nearly drowning me. Here's the grassy meadow where almost every summer day, we lay in the sun and played in the water.

This is the river where Ishaq's kids would come and go rafting with him each summer. Where we first walked in the snow together, the February we became a couple, watching the ducks waddle up through the cold white covering, quacking loudly at us, annoyed that we came without any food for them. The river where he took students from his Sunday class on Sufism to swim, the last class he taught, the Sunday before he died.

I did walk here a few times after he passed away. I remember seeing friends, who offered their condolences, or their thoughts, or just a touch of the hand and an understanding smile if I didn't appear to be conversational. I remember wondering the first time I walked there, where Ishaq was now. Was he part of the river, the trees, the clouds? Each step brought another memory, bittersweet as memories often are. Ospreys circled above, just as they had circled over me in the backyard the day I divided his ashes in the garden. Some for me, some for family, some for friends and students.