I’m in St. George, Utah this weekend.  I sit here on the porch of our little rental house.  It’s sweet and small, just enough bedrooms and bathrooms for us to be comfortable and nothing more than we need.  

I’m outside on the porch in an attempt to steal away a few moments of quiet separate from my kids, to just be.  It’s not to think so much, but that will still happen even though I try to clear my mind.  

The wind is strong.  It’s blowing my hair out of its tie no matter how many times I take it out to put it back in tighter.  The wind.  Then I remember that this is the same wind from when I lived near here.  It was just a few months I lived here, and why?  Because of this very same strong controlling wind.   

Ahhhh yes, I say to myself- I remember you.  It was you who took my husband.   You wind, you were the one who killed him.  I sit in the wind here and now and feel it's never ending push against me.  I hear the rustling all around me of the wind blowing by my ears.

The wind. That sound it makes as it rushes past the hollow of my head creating the sound that these ears are meant to pick up.  I hear it.  I feel it.  I think of that day the wind was so strong that it blew my love to the ground so violently.  

The wind that took the life from his body the moment he landed back on the earth. The earth, where the wind no longer had any control. The wind couldn’t control where he could go once he landed there, but it was too late to be safe from it.

I sit here on the porch looking out at the vastness of this valley you loved so much Grant.  I know that I’m safe, at least from the wind taking my life at this moment.  As I think this, the wind picks up and blows stronger.

It's as if it wants to taunt me into thinking there’s some power in it to the contrary.  But, my body is safe on the ground already, not connected to anything that could pick me up and take me away. There is no parachute here like the parachute you were connected to.

That parachute the wind used, though not to save you, but to toss you to the earth. The wind did just that when the wind blew you away, never to be seen again.  It's a solemn thing to think about out here on the porch.