When the campfire slows to embers and to gray ashes, we're reminded of our finitude. On another night, the family slept through a violent thunderstorm along the shores of Lake Michigan. The storm could be compared to a battlefield bombardment. J ust a few weeks earlier, we'd been told, a storm with winds up to 135 mph sliced through the property, uprooting half-dozen aged trees. The clean-up crew counted 169 rings in one of the fallen trees.
Nature acts with life-threatening force.
The houses were undamaged, but the tale added to the anxiety my son felt. Comforting him forced me into reflection on these daily threats of life. During our week of leisure, I purchased a copy of USA Today. The entire United States was printed in deep, hot crimson or burning bright orange, indicating the two highest categories of temperature on the map's key. That map quickly and dramatically told us the nation sat in the grip of a heat wave that eventually would claim upward of 120 lives.