Slow Walks in Marsing

Kim Steinberg and her husband, Si, live in the small high desert city of Boise, Idaho. Kim enjoys tromping through the foothills, walking by the river, and traveling to places unknown. Three half-read books sit on her side table waiting to be finished. Kim lost her oldest son, Kieran, January 20, 2023. 

The mist on the river makes me think of Kieran. The way he was fearless, even at nine, leaping from a high bank into the fish ladder, fighting the current, swimming frantically to shore, doing it all over again. Tears are there in the back of my throat but there’s a peace too – in the solitude, the lift of red wing blackbird to air, a blue heron who takes to flight.

Snake River, Marsing, Idaho

We’re only eighty miles from Boise but the drive seems long. Marsing is unfamiliar – this farm land with its rows of furrowed crops, horses in the pasture, two hefty bulls behind a fence. The Snake River is flat and wide here, unhurried. I think of the slow passage of time and how new neurons replace old memories when we visit places we’ve never been – how change heals. 

I hear thunder in the distance every once in a while – shots, farm equipment, the backfire of an old truck. A weather siren blares on Fridays calling out volunteer firefighters. 

Stacey, the kind Airbnb hostess, invites me to enter her garage, find the freezer, and help myself to a pack of frozen beef. She says they had to kill a cow. I don’t ask questions because I don’t want to know the details. I’m surprised she leaves her door unlocked with strangers on the property but life in the country must be safer. When I take the package of ground meat, I feel like a thief.  

A woman in a grief group I attended moved away immediately after her husband died. Professionals advise mourners to postpone important decisions like a big move, but I understand why she did it. Her house probably smelled like him. He was everywhere: in the bed where they slept, the kitchen where they cooked, the garage where they worked. 

It’s so random. This one lives and that one dies and nobody knows why. God doesn’t always answer our cries. We don’t get to understand. We have to be satisfied with guesses, wonderings, and platitudes, or accept that there’s no answer. 

The walks are flat on these country lanes. Around the pond, past the field, stopping at the horses: Peanut Butter, Bummy, Bulls-Eye. The colt is an eight-month-old wild mustang who misses his herd. I wish they’d left him free. Bright orange carrots in my pocket. Velvet lips on my palm. I’ll miss them when we’re gone.

Most nights we eat in. My husband, Si, cooks dinner. Meatloaf, potato, salad. On Friday, we eat out at a farm to table restaurant called Peaceful Belly, because I like the name. Si says I can have whatever I want, do whatever I want, be whoever I want, because I’m a grieving mother. I ask how long that will last and he says forever, which makes me cry. 

We shop in town at the Chevron M&W next door to the liquor store. Si shoots the shit with the cashier, disarming her small-town reserve with goofy jokes, making me smile. She says she grew up around here but it’s changed with all the sub-divisions. It’s not the same anymore.

At night, we read or talk, watch Netflix, then climb into a bed softer and smaller than the one we have at home. Our bodies touch and I like how close we are, how warm he is. I don’t wake up at three a.m. with regrets about what should have been. I relax into a restful sleep and each simple quiet day is more of the same. 

I walk, write and think about my son. It doesn’t hurt as much, somewhere else, somewhere new.  

Kieran, you’re in my heart like a song I’ve heard a hundred times. I love you. I miss you. I wish you were here. Sun glints off river, cypress trees stand tall, February rain falls, a hint of spring. You would like it here but you’d find it tame. You were always the wild one. 

I say your name and remember you, on slow walks in Marsing.