LOSS AND NATURE

Leelanau's Cedar River Preserve provides peace and perspective.

- CAROLYN FAUGHT

While waiting for a hike to begin during Earth Week last spring at Kehl Lake, I felt my phone buzzing in my pocket. Glancing at the screen, I saw it was a close friend of mine, a college roommate, who dislikes talking on the phone and almost never calls. I picked up.

My friend could hardly speak but managed to get the words out that her daughter, 28 years old, had died that morning of a drug overdose. She had just heard the news. It was a call that I had somehow always expected I might get, and yet it nearly took me to my knees.