Dear Rawson Pond

Dear Rawson Pond,

Thank you for grounding me in the New England seasons. You taught me to appreciate the spring peepers, the territorial arrogance of the mating swans, the 28 species of ducks who would stop by as they migrated in the fall, and the hard-working river otters who brought fish up from under the ice and tried to eat their catch on an ice floe before the eagles either stole the fish or feasted on the otter.

I could tell the seasons and the weeks by where the sun rose and set over you.

And, oh, those full moons, bouncing light off your calm waters and into our bedrooms at 2 a.m. We never drew our shades. Sunsets and moonsets were not to be missed.

Thank you, Rawson Pond, for being the place where we hosted parties that people still talk about.

Fourth of July with the kids canoeing and exploring the island without parental supervision, waiting for the fireworks over the water.

Christmas with the tree lit up and floating in the middle of you so we could look out our windows on the darkest winter night and find small moments of joy.

The first snow when neighbors of every age would grab a shovel and clear away room to skate.

You didn’t take kindly to thaws. I never got used to the eerie, thunderous noises you made as the water moved under the ice and tried to break up the skating area. It was your sign to the children, “No skating! The ice is weak and falling apart. If you fall in, the 80-year-old turtle will go after you, and you won’t be able to find your way up through the ice that’s left.” That noisy warning always worked.

Your beauty was a showstopper. People would walk into our house and see you through the big windows. “Wow, wow, wow,” they’d say. “This pond is so beautiful.”

I adored your beauty, which always changed with the seasons, welcoming wildlife and human life to bask in its gloriousness.

You were our constant, even as you constantly changed.

Over the past ten years, we worried more that you might rise with the raging storms and spill into our basements, flooding the old sofas, boxes stuffed with high school yearbooks, photographs of relatives we never knew, and ski clothes that hadn’t been worn in years. Or worse, flood the furnace and oil tank.

There were some close calls, but somehow you held it together.

When I impulsively decided to sell the house three months after Greg, your biggest fan, died, I mourned you, Rawson Pond. I knew I wouldn’t miss the house. But you? Oh, my heart.

You were my rock, a source of wonder and comfort throughout my adult life. Losing Greg was out of my control. But how could I leave you?

I had to go. I worried too much about the growing ferocity of storms. I feared you would cave from exhaustion and no longer be able to contain the raging rain. If you broke and flooded my house, what would I do? I had no energy left after caring for Greg for so many years. I couldn’t take one more unexpected crisis. I was out of gas, physically and emotionally. I had to leave you, though it broke my heart.

I never expected what happened to you four months after I sold the house.

“The pond is gone!” my former pond neighbors texted. The 100-year-old dam broke during the storm, and all the water has gone downstream.”

Oh, Rawson Pond, we never expected you to leave us this way.

My neighbors now look out at a 35-acre mud hole. The swans, geese, herons, turtles, peepers, otters, and eagles, like me, have left.

I never thought I’d leave you, Rawson Pond.

 I never thought you would leave, too.