I’m looking at a photograph, large, matted and framed and on the wall above the desk in my home office. It was taken from a glorious and elevated position overlooking Fallen Leaf Lake in California’s Sierra Nevada range, and beyond it the even deeper icy blue waters of Lake Tahoe. A ridge of purple mountains lie behind the lakes, the water reflecting a near cloudless sky above, the dark greens and rutty browns of the Jeffrey pines fill in the descent in front of me. As I look at this picture, I am thinking of Nan, who died, too young, of cancer last year. I didn’t know her well, but I am connected to her by Fallen Leaf Lake. We first visited John and Nan’s summer place several years ago when my sister Joyce and her family had the use of it, and invited my wife Barbara and me down there to join the family for a few days when it was clear that the West Coast visit we were planning would co-inside with the lake-side sabbatical her family had scheduled at John and Nan’s. When we arrived, following the directions from San Franciso we had jotted down on scrap paper, we found a lovely place on a deep, cold glacier lake whose trout avoid the bright summer sun that penetrates deep towards the barren rock bed below. We enjoyed kayaking, row boating, fishing, hiking, lounging and olympic dock sitting. I ventured to the Carson River each evening for some fine fly fishing. I may have met John and Nan before, but I didn’t remember. For those few days on Fallen Leaf Lake we acquired a sense of their tastes, and met one of their daughters who was camped out in a bunk house on the property, working near by. But we lived those days in their shadow, grateful for their good taste, admiring John’s gifts for working with wood, and thankful for their hospitality and friendship with my sister.
A few years later Barbara and I were back near that part of California, this time for a meeting scheduled at the Zephyr Point Conference Center on Lake Tahoe just across the state line in Nevada. During the one afternoon when free time was provided, and remembering the beauty of Fallen Leaf Lake -- smaller and more intimate than Lake Tahoe with all it raucus noise -- we set out to find again the marina at the bottom of the lake, and to rent kayaks for a little exercise, entertainment and quiet time together.
It’s probably a forty-five minute shore line paddle to John and Nan’s place from the marina. As we approached their compound, all looked pretty much the same as it had when we first visited, although we knew that their lives had changed in the intervening years. Months earlier, when we’d written my sister to tell her were we coming west, that we would be near Lake Tahoe, and that we wondered whether there was a chance we could meet at Fallen Leaf Lake, she wrote back that she didn’t know when she could approach Nan about the possibility because Nan had been diagnosed with cancer. A request for use of their place as a summer respite was a boundary she could not cross yet, until there was some sense of a light at the end of the tunnel through which Nan was navigating.
In the meantime my sister’s son and his wife welcomed triplets into the world, a blessed event that took her in another direction so completely that, regrettably, she and her husband would not be available themselves when we were there.
Now these months later, at the end of summer, Barbara and I found ourselves on Fallen Leaf Lake, plying the water with our paddles, conscious of the time available to us; we had rented the kayaks for two hours, and knew we would be paddling into the wind on our return. We sidled along the shoreline, past John and Nan’s place, wondering how she was doing with her treatments, thinking too of my sister Joyce, her husband Pat, her children and those new grandchildren. So much seemed the same on that shore line, but so much new had emerged: new babies, new illness, new challenges.
We left John and Nan’s place behind, played tag with ducks that rode waves that were building to small white caps in the afternoon breeze. About an hour out we turned back to make good on our half of the contract by getting the boats back on time. As we approached John and Nan’s place on the homeward reach, we noticed some activity on the shore. We angled our kayaks towards their dock where a man seemed to be doing some light work, perhaps cleaning up, or repositioning outdoor furniture. As we glided near, hollered and waved, he came out to the end of the dock to investigate. We introduced ourselves, told him I was Joyce’s brother, remembered the time we’ve spent three days at their cottage a few years earlier, and complimented him on what a beautiful place it was. He mentioned Nan had been resting; we acknowledged we had heard she was ill. I can’t remember now whether she had been in the middle of radiation or chemotherapy, but whatever it was, it was taking the starch out of her. She didn’t have a lot of energy, but she was doing what she could. She’d seen John talking to us and slowly walked out to greet us, too. He sat on his heels, knees deeply bent, as he talked with us; she sat on the dock and crossed her legs in front of her. Barb and I rafted together; I held onto the dock as we bobbed in the clear, tourquise water at the edge of the cold, blue ink-deep lake.
Our conversation included John’s recollection of my father, whom he had found memorable for his sense of humor and friendliness. I hope some friend of one of my children remembers me that fondly when I’ve been gone from the earth for a decade. It had been fourteen years since my dad had died. Isn't it amazing how you can be grabbed by a memory that just won’t let you go? That you remember the warmth of a person’s sense of humor, or his kindness, her playfulness, his thoughtfulness, her openness? Whatever it was, my dad’s life had spoken to John at some level that he remembered warmly all these years later, and the memory of our father was a tie between John and my sister Joyce and me: memory came alive even though my dad had been dead for years. I have some friends from Africa who, if they heard this story, might remind me that as long as we are remembering him, in a real sense he is still alive. For Christians, it is the stuff communion is made of: "Take, eat. Do this in remembrance of me."
John and Nan, Barbara and I, talked about the beauty of the area and how fortunate they were. They remembered when they had first acquired the property. John was a contractor and did the building himself. They’d made good use of the land they’d had, and when we visited that first time, I remembered, they had been trying unsuccessfully to grow grass and had finally given up, having ordered some sod to be laid down instead. Yes, John said, remembering that challenge, the sod had taken well. His struggle with the lawn, his ultimate success, and my memory of it, brought a smile.
I commented on smoke beyond the ridge on the far horizon. John mentioned the serious fires all over the Sierra Nevada that summer, including one fire in particular that had run the ridge behind their place. From the lake side you could not tell, but if you got yourself just over the back side of ridge, he said, you’d see the scorched and blackened trees that now stood like dead sentinels, testifying to disaster barely averted by those who enjoyed waterfront homes and cottages on this lake. John gave us directions to get us to the heart of where the fire had been so that later we could see for ourselves. Had the wind shifted, he said, we would not be having this lake-side meeting. The beauty of Fallen Leaf Lake would have turned into something akin to blackened heart-break, promised happiness burned out, yearning to be redeemed. It was hard to imagine, looking at the beauty around us, that death and destruction, and an ugly imprint, could have possibly come so near. It happens, I know: people’s lives are caught up in fire storms of every variety, and the beauty around them smolders in ruins.
We spoke about Nan’s health. My sister loved her, and I could see why: a gentle, unassuming, graceful, beautiful person. You could see the beauty in her eyes. She admitted that the medical treatments were taking their toll, making her tired. But, she said, if that was the price of getting better, that was what she would endure. She leaned back with her arms taught, stretched out and supporting her torso, her face lifted a bit to the mountain air, breathing it in.
Barb and I spoke about how good it was to finally meet them, to have had the opportunity to hear about how they came to own this spot, to be updated on Nan’s health, to make this momentary connection.
When we arrived late back at the marina, the water front manager didn’t seem bothered at all. We checked our pfd’s and paddles in, walked the steep climb to the camp store, bought a sandwich and a drink, visited the rest room, climbed back into the car, and headed back to the conference center. On the way we took the excursion into the forest fire area to which John had given us directions. Here and there, from an elevated deck of a ranch style house, home owners had hung bed sheets conveying in big, block letters thanks to the firemen and women who had risked their lives to keep the flames from their homes. More often than not, though, foundations were exposed where homes had once stood only days before. These were not the homes of the rich, we noticed; these were modest homes with small footprints where your regular, everyday folks lived such as a town librarian or restaurant worker or convenience store clerk. Fire could have roamed the lake front at Fallen Leaf, but that day the winds had kept it on the other side of the ridge. Dependent solely on the direction of the wind, death had visited this spot rather than that.
There is no hint of the fire in the photograph that hangs on my office wall, overlooking Fallen Leaf Lake, and Lake Tahoe beyond it, and the Sierra Nevada beyond that. On my wall the view never changes. It tells the tale of static beauty.
Nan died last year. The word came from my sister Joyce in a brief email, perhaps shortened because to have written more would have required pouring out the grief. She was too young, the note said.
I’m thinking of Nan as I look at the photograph of Fallen Leaf Lake. I hardly knew her, although her beauty could be fathomed through the generosity by which she allowed us use of her lake-side cottage; I could see it in a small encounter at dock-side during which the grit she brought to her struggle with cancer illuminated an inner grace.
“Teach us to number our days,” the Psalmist wrote, “that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” Let us number them by remembering the beauty around us, including the beauty of people who touch us. Those memories are redemptive; they are impervious to fire.
