It’s January 1, 2022. I’m in the swamp today and I watched the sun come up from my perch twenty feet off of the ground. There is a small creek on each side of the tree I’m sitting in. It’s unseasonably warm, but the wind keeps me from sweating.

Our boys and I have been staying in our no running water or electricity cabin for two weeks now while they are on Christmas break. My bride stays with us when she can, but with an increase in Covid cases at her work she is working extra hours.

My retirement job allows us to spend more time together. Yesterday afternoon, our boys and I worked on a large farm, and we watched the sun go down on New Year’s Eve. Our youngest had to take a picture of the patch of clouds that seemed to speak to him. It was then that I noticed the clouds, the green winter wheat, the cows, and the moment in time of a retired, simple man, and two young men.

I stood and looked over several hundred acres and wondered where I would be tonight if I still carried the badge; probably not here. My bride got home late from work and said, “I really want to just sleep.” I replied, “Stay here, the boys and I will take the dog and stay at the cabin. Maybe you can come over for a late campfire breakfast.” I’m confident that when the garage door closed, she was asleep.

The warm temperatures allowed us to have the windows open in the cabin, so the sound of the frogs and one owl was our New Year’s Eve music. The wind moved across the pond and my last memory of 2021 was the smell of the pond water.

I’ve hunted in this spot for twenty years. The tree my stand is attached to has grown over those years. I’m sure the tree is a he and he has survived many hurricanes and several tornadoes. I cried under his limbs the year my dad and best friend died. I’ve watched trees grow here and I’ve watched trees die here. There is a tree to my left that grew too close to another tree, but the wind blows enough that they do not grow together, although they do rub each other. There is just about every kind of tree growing here. There is no dominant tree. Hurricane Michael did it’s best to push one tree over, but another tree kept him from falling down. That tree now grows at an angle with some of its roots exposed, but it lives because another tree supports it.

I reflect hard today on the last two years of retirement. In many ways I’m just another tree in this spot. I realize now that the things that used to spin me up do not matter. I watched a small turtle, maybe the size of a two-inch circle, travel down the creek this morning. It took him an hour to go about 30 yards down the creek.

Between the roots, the leaves, and taking a break or two, he finally made it out of my sight. I write often about the creek of life and how we are all on a creek headed to that larger body of water.

I’ve been that turtle more than once in my life; fighting and struggling my way down that creek. Now, I think I’m more like one of these trees along this creek, just finding my spot and growing my roots. The body of water that I was searching for was always right here. Around God’s planet we have used water to separate and divide what we feel is ours. Here, the two creeks do not divide the trees, they join them together.

I’ve been the strong tree, the leaning tree, the tree that rubs another wrong, and the tree that reaches for the sky above, not caring about the other trees around him.

So, on this New Year’s Day, I ask myself, is this spot between these two creeks heaven? I know what teachers, parents, and priests have told me about heaven. I know my eyes have seen an artist’s interpretation of heaven. The older I get, the more my limbs tell me that I have lived a full life, and the more I think heaven is right here in these trees. As our body grows and ages, to me, our soul does the same. Here amongst these trees, I can see all the phases of my life and all the phases of my soul. Here I feel at peace, and my only wish is that more people could find their peace and accept the many different trees because at one point, we were all that little turtle on the creek of life. We all searched for that larger body of water, all the while wondering what heaven was like. On this New Year’s Day, as a simple man on a perch, heaven is right here if you choose to embrace it and accept the trees around you.