The Raven's Message

A moment at Lake Crescent, in memory of my brother

Last week, I found myself driving toward the Hoh Rainforest, and it felt like Robert was with me. Not loudly, not in some grand, ghostly way. Just quiet and steady, like he always was. Like a presence sitting beside me, watching the trees pass, half-listening to the wind, half-sifting through some story still taking shape. Every bend in the road carried an echo, with conversations we’d shared, ideas he’d turned over, dreams he’d pulled from the mist.

Grief does that. It doesn’t knock. It shows up quiet and uninvited, turning an ordinary drive into a walk through the past.

Robert lived with me in Port Angeles for four years, from 2018 until his passing in 2022. Four years that felt like whole lives packed into fleeting moments. Lake Crescent became our place. Not because we chose it, but because something there chose us. Sometimes we’d go just to sit in the silence. Other times, he'd talk about the lake like it was alive. "It has old bones," he’d say. "It remembers what the rest of the world forgets."

The first time I took him there, he leaned into the guardrail like the water was telling him secrets. Later, that lake showed up in his writing, under new names, hiding darker stories, but always with the same stillness, the same weight.

Robert saw the world differently. He filled his notebooks with strange maps and wandering kings, druids and ravens, portals that opened if you knew how to ask. Lake Crescent, he said, was one of those places already partway into another world. "You just have to listen long enough."

So I listened. Last week, alone on that road, I stopped at a turnout we’d visited many times. Not for the view, though the view was still there, but because I remembered his voice on that last drive. He’d been talking about ravens. Their memory. Their magic. Their place between worlds.

The road was oddly quiet. Still in a way that makes you lower your voice without meaning to.

That’s when I saw him.

A raven, dark as ink, perched on the very spot where Robert once stood. He didn’t move when I opened the door. Didn’t startle or caw or flap his wings. Just watched. Calm and sure, like he knew me.

And in my mind, I heard Robert again: "That one’s old. Probably served a druid king or two. They know things, those birds. Things deeper than the lake."

The line between his fantasy and my reality wavered. And for just a breath, I didn’t try to separate them.

The raven tilted his head, the way Robert used to when considering a story he hadn’t yet decided whether to share. We stood there, watching each other, me holding memory, him holding something more.

When he finally lifted into the trees, the silence remained. Not hollow, not sad. Just full. Like something had been said that needed no words.

I sat in the car for a while after that. Not crying. Just remembering. Just grateful.

Grateful for a brother who showed me that love can stretch between worlds. That stories don’t die, they wait. And that sometimes, when the light is right and the veil is thin, a raven will come remind you that someone you miss still sees you.

Robert would have grinned at that. “Told you,” he’d say, his eyes shining with mischief and knowing.

This is for that moment.
For Robert, who saw the magic first.
For the lake, with its deep bones and long memory.
And for the stories, his stories, that are still waiting,
quiet and patient,
by the water’s edge.

The Raven's Message

There once was a lake with old, deep bones,
Where water held secrets and sunken stones.
My brother would sit by the mirrored shore
And speak of realms beyond what we saw before.

He'd point to the ravens with knowing eyes,
And say, "They served druid kings in these skies.
They guard old secrets beneath the lake,
And wait for the moment the veils might break."

But seasons turned, and my brother left,
His notebooks unfinished, his stories bereft.
The guardrail stood empty, the pines grew still,
Yet magic lingered on that wooded hill.

One quiet morning I drove that way,
Through curves where his voice still seemed to stay.
I stopped at a turnout we used to know,
Missing the tales he'd let gently flow.

Then black as ink from his notebook's page,
A raven appeared like a quiet sage.
Perched on the rail where Robert once leaned,
Watching the lake where his thoughts had gleaned.

He didn’t flinch or fly away,
Just tilted his head as if to say,
"I remember the one who could see past sight,
Who knew we are watchers by day and night."

The boundary thinned, as my brother said,
Between the living and the long-since dead.
And there by the water with old, deep bones,
I felt his presence in whispered tones.

The raven lifted into the pines,
Like all the magic in Robert's lines—
Here for a moment, then gone from view,
But leaving behind what he always knew:

That love lingers long in these ancient places,
In quiet watchers and remembered faces.
And stories, the good ones, they never end.
They just wait by the lake for a listening friend.

“For Robert (1983–2022) Whose voice still echoes across this water, Whose imagination dwells between these trees. You knew the language of ravens and lakes, And taught me to listen for stories In places where others hear only silence.”