Chapter Two

A Pair for Life

My two sons, Clay and Clint, crawled along beside me across the wet leaves to the bluff bank on Dry Creek.  We were just west of where the creek runs into Bundick Creek.  As we crawled along, I kept looking at the boys reminding them to stay quiet because I knew I'd heard wood ducks on the creek...

As we slid along up to the cliff edge, we saw a male drake wood duck resplendent in the beautiful colors that make this bird my favorite waterfowl.  He was swimming along beside his drab-colored hen companion.  They were aware of something being wrong but couldn't quite place where we were as they nervously swam in circles.

It was a special moment in my life- one of my sons on each side lying on the high bank as we watched the pair of ducks swimming about.   Seeing a male wood duck on a creek or slough is a special sight.  I’ve seen beautiful paintings of wood ducks.  I’ve admired the mounted wood ducks that taxidermists have done.   But these replicates pale when compared to the sheen and color of a wood duck drake as he swims in circles, the sunlight reflecting off his brilliant green-colored head.

The boys kept looking back at my shotgun which was leaning against a nearby tree.  I kept shaking my head no when they imploringly looked at me.  We lay there about ten minutes just enjoying watching them.  Eventually the ducks swam down Dry Creek and out into the stronger current of Bundick... and then they were gone.

My sons upbraided me pretty bad about not shooting the ducks.  I tried to explain how these two ducks were a pair.  If my understanding of waterfowl was correct, they were a couple just the same as me and their mom.  I just didn't have the heart to shoot.  I'm not sure the boys understood, but one day they probably will.

I thought about that pair of ducks several months later when we buried my grandmother.  As I sat with my grandfather at the hospital before her death and then was with him at the funeral, my mind kept returning to those two ducks in the creek- a pair for life.

Grandpa and Grandma Sid, as we called them, had been married over sixty-two years when she died.  Throughout my memory, they only existed together... inseparable.  During my childhood I always looked forward to their visits.  I recalled summer weeks spent in Shreveport with them.  Whenever and wherever I saw them, they were together- My Grandpa and Grandma Sid.

Now as I thought about it, they were no longer together.  How it hurt my heart to see him alone.  How lonely it must have been after spending practically every moment together over the last twenty years and sharing life together for over sixty.

I thought about my own wife, DeDe, and how close we are.  And I thought about the loneliness one of us will one day endure.  And once again I could see the wood ducks swimming off together...  and it occurred to me how long sixty-two years must be and yet how quickly sixty-two years must seem to pass.  Then my grandfather's words came back to me, "Well, if I'd had her ninety-two years, I still wouldn't have wanted to have given her up."

There are so many things I don't understand about life.  Life is full of so much happiness and sadness.  We live and love the same person for a lifetime of happiness, in this case sixty-two year’s worth, and then it must end sadly... and alone.

There is so much we just don't understand but we must choose.  We can concentrate on the happy memories and joy shared together... the intertwining of two lives wrapped together by love.  Or we can dwell on the sorrow and loneliness that come to us when "death does us part."

I choose to think about those two happy wood ducks swimming off into the current together... and those wonderful memories of my grandparents together.