The Bull by Miller Creek

I remember the summer of '58 when Jasper and I wrestled that ornery black bull down to the watering hole. The beast had more stubbornness in his hooves than most folks have in their whole bodies, but Jasper—he had patience like nobody I ever knew. We spent three long mornings coaxing that creature, bucket after bucket of grain, until finally he drank from Miller Creek like he'd been doing it all his life.

These days, I find myself moving slower through my garden at dawn. My daughter calls me her 'zombie' before her morning coffee, and we both laugh at the truth in it. Some mornings, indeed, I feel like I'm sleepwalking through memories, except they're sharper than the present—sweeter somehow.

That old bull's still grazing in the pasture across the road, or his great-granddaughter is. Sometimes I stand at the fence watching her, and the water cooler than it ought to be in July, and I swear I can hear Jasper laughing about something ridiculous he said thirty years ago. Folks tell me I'm imagining things, but I know better.

My late wife's straw hat hangs by the back door, bent from thirty summers of garden work, the ribbon faded but still tied in the bow she favored. I put it on sometimes when I'm working the roses, and it sits loose on my white-haired head like a crown from some gentle kingdom.

What I've learned in eighty-two years is this: the best parts of living don't leave us. They settle into the landscape like water finds its level—into the soil, the trees, the old fences. Jasper's still here in the shade of the silver maple. My wife's still here in the roses she planted. And that bull's descendants still drink from Miller Creek like they own the place, which they mostly do.

I lean on my cane watching the sunset paint the horizon in colors we didn't have names for back then. Tomorrow I'll tell my granddaughter about the summer Jasper and I tamed the bull, and how some friendships are like good water—clear and constant and deeper than you expect.

The hat tips forward in the evening breeze. Another day done, but not finished. Never quite finished.