Just Around the Bend

Shaw Mountain Road, late December. It’s a bumpy, narrow road, cut into the steep hillside following Cottonwood Creek. Most people around here don’t bother with it. I like it for that reason. This stretch is the best of it. The road curves and pinches between two rock outcroppings, forcing you to trust what’s just around the bend.

On this winter day I thought about the decision my brother and I had made to stop working at our company. Six years we ran it, and had just handed it to a professional manager. We felt good about it. We also had no idea if it was the right move.

My mother’s cancer had come back too. “Metastasized,” the doctor said. I didn’t know yet what that word actually meant, only that it sounded like the kind of word she wouldn’t recover from.

I drove up here looking for something. Not sadness. Just not knowing.

Whatever was around the bend, I’d find out. I always do.