Eagles over Wolf Creek

I hadn’t been there in six years, but it had been with me

There is great good in returning to a landscape that has had extraordinary meaning in one’s life. It happens that we return to such places in our minds irresistibly… They become indispensable to our well-being; they define us, and we say: I am who I am because I have been there, or there. — N. Scott Momaday

One of those places is near my grandparents’ old home along Wolf Creekin Slippery Rock, Pa., but I hadn’t been there in six years.

I had opportunities to go on visits home, always glimpsing the road as I drove down 173, but I never slowed down to make the turn. I felt certain that seeing my grandparents’ home and their corner of Wolf Creek again, without them there, would change it and change me.

But one evening in July, I finally took the turn.

The sunlight, like antique gold at that time of day, illuminated the fields beside me. Flashes of sun filtered through the pin oaks’ thick leaves, casting flecks of light across my windshield as I drove back.

I slowed down as I came upon Grandma and Pop’s old house. I saw the changes, namely the garden that was now grass, like the rest of the yard. The garden had given my family so much — pecks of tomatoes, cucumbers to pickle, pumpkins to carve at Halloween. It kept my grandparents whole and connected to the land. Now, without that tilled patch of earth cut into the yard, it felt empty.

Not wanting to linger, I drove down to the creek. I parked, as I used to, beyond the bridge and walked back to stand on the concrete structure. My brother, Matthew, and I would walk down underneath the old open-grate bridge that was here before and sit on the bank fishing, catching bluegills with Pap. Their sharp spines would cut into my soft palms, so Grandpa would help me. His palms were old and calloused, and the fish would slip easily from his hands into our bucket of water. When it was time for chipped-ham sandwiches, we’d release the flipping bluegills into the creek and head back to the house. • I stood on the bridge listening to the gentle rhythm of water trickling over rocks, the air thick with humidity, the sky hazy, muting the colors of the trees and fading sun — saturating my photographs.

I stood there looking, listening, and remembering.

I just wanted to hold on to the stillness — keep it as close as I could. Time would slowly take it away, a little each day, until the feeling was distant and muted like the fog-covered colors of the woods that evening.

• I saw the flutter of wings and suddenly the empty space between the creek, trees and sky was filled with an eagle taking flight.

It swooped down from the trees along the creek — its broad wings opening in a single graceful movement. It flew over to where the water banks to the right, and glided over the creek, down around the bend. Its striking white tail feathers cut through the dull evening light.

Another eagle flew over the bridge from behind me, soundless, and disappeared into where the gray of early night brushed the treetops.

• In all my years of coming to the creek, I had never seen eagles.

Feeling a lightness in my chest, I pressed my right hand to my heart. My anxiety over returning disappeared and was replaced with understanding.

“That’s for you, Grandma and Pop,” I said. “Those eagles are here for you.”

• Later that evening, I called my father to tell him.

I think he feels as I do, that even though the land is no longer ours, it is OK. The eagles are there watching over Grandma and Poppy’s small corner of Wolf Creek. Going back did change me — it gave me peace, but it didn’t change my memories of my grandparents’ home and our adventures by the water.

My experience that night also reminded my father of the rare albino six-point buck that came to the house after Grandpa died 11 years ago. I’d nearly forgotten the story, but as we talked, Dad reminded me of the special deer he saw the year before Pap passed and then, soon after my grandfather died, the deer had returned.

The white buck came one day through the field across the road from their home. My father told me, “It walked into the yard and took a turn around the house, as though he was coming to say goodbye and pay his respects to the old man.” Then the buck went back across the road, the way it came, and disappeared through the tree line. My father never saw it again.

• Such things are hard to reason or explain, but I know that a part of my grandparents lives on there —where the creek bends out of view and the light is soft. And when I stand on the bridge, in the stillness, I can see my grandfather's easy smile and silver hair as he takes the fishing line in his hands and casts into the creek.