National Park of Grief

 I wrote this for this project: National Parks of Emotion

National Park of Grief

In 2018, I suffered a huge loss. I spent 2019 learning about how to be someone, to be someone who was no longer a parent. I had big plans for 2020. The pandemic hit; everything became raw again. In fall of 2020, I decided that I would hike the Bruce Trail, all 900 km of it. I would take my heartbreak to this trail that covers the Niagara Escarpment from Niagara to Tobermory.

On a cold January day, I hiked through a section where it felt like nothing was still alive but there were hints that there was still potential for something else. Some of the trees there had fallen to the ground, but they’d been overtaken by fungi and lichen - new growth from dead things. Large trees had been blown over, unrooted in a recent storm, but they were still standing, being held up by the forest around them. One tree was missing most of its trunk, but was still upright through sheer force of will; it didn’t know anything different. I found the tiniest abandoned bird’s nest, smaller than a tea cup from a child’s playset, just three feet from the ground. Birds had lived here, but no longer.  There had been life in this forest. There was still life in this forest, but it looked different. It was a landscape that was becoming something else entirely.