Sixty-five years was a long time to live in someone else's house. Wherever we moved, the house was always someone else's, the missionary house next to the large, red tabernacle church; Grandma's house with a big yard with a peach tree and a Royal Ann cherry tree. But this was his home. He had helped the carpenter pour the foundation, frame the house, often hitting his thumb with the massive carpenter's hammer until his thumb was black granite beneath the nail. He had hung the sheetrock, just as he had done for a living while in his twenties. "Oh, how we used to work hard nailing sheetrock," he'd recall, and tell the well-worn story one more time that fit comfortable like an old sweatshirt. He nailed, taped, and painted that housed together. When he came to a task, he didn't know how to do, he simply invented a new way, and proceeded.

When visitors came, he showed them the house, the cabinets he'd built, the practical and functional bathroom with the bathtub and shower he'd installed, the woodstove bought for a bargain, and the brick hearth built using his own new invention for getting the mortar in the cracks. He showed them his dreams, a whole life of dreams stored up while living in other people's houses. He showed them his trees, fruit trees, and fir trees, an entire orchard on the hill. "This tree has four different fruits grafted in," he'd say, "two kinds of apples and two kinds of pears." And he would tell of the trees all the way down the line to the olive trees which didn't see more than two or three winters before they shriveled and died. Making note of the nuggets of soap tied to the trees, he'd explain, "the Irish Spring soap keeps the deer away," a bit of contemporary folklore with a lively fresh scent! He'd show them the fir trees planted all close together along the fence, at first just tiny saplings no larger than a pencil, and then small trees reminiscent of Christmas tree farms where we had gone together to cut that perfect tree.

He'd show the visitors the land—the woods and the creek. With high heels and dress shoes replaced with borrowed old work shoes and rubber boots, we'd all trudge the short stretch across the field and into the woods—from the brilliance of sunlight into shadows beneath tall cedars—into a tangle of underbrush—blackberries, ferns, and nettles. The trees whispered in windy sighs of a time long past when magnificent old-growth giants had stood unmoveable on this land for hundreds of years. As we walked, Dad would retell dreams: of raising cows, of clearing out the underbrush and planting the noble firs and blue spruce now growing in rows by the house. "I want to have a hiking trail all around the property," he'd say, "so I can exercise and keep up with my boys."

Past the blackberry patch and through the cedar grove, where the sound of rushing water ascends from below, the path crossed a small spring-fed brook cut deep into the clay. But there wasn't any bridge. We had slung a two-by-six plank across the narrow gap with the cold spring water running eight feet below. "Here I want to put in fish ponds," Dad would continue, "and feed them with the worms from the worm bins, " as he led those in oversized boots across a too narrow and too long plank that bounced as you crossed—while his guests peered warily down. Just at the juncture of where the little brook flows into the creek, the flow of water had carved out a beach flanked by high banks of clay, etched out by floodwaters. Overarching this space were trees all around, some half falling, teetering on the edge of the banks with roots deep in the ground, holding the branches far above, suspended like a high, vaulted roof. He called it "the cathedral." "Someday I'd like to have a swimming hole here, and picnic tables up there overlooking the creek, and a place to have a fire to sit around and have people over for a picnic of roasted hot dogs." Dad loved hot dogs, and so they too were figured into his dreams.

But there was a problem. People didn't like crossing the plank; some had even waited amongst the cedars for the tour to end. With Dad being so busy working on the house, I set about making a bridge in Dad's shop, which was in the basement garage. I built the bridge using some of the short two-by-fours which Dad had gotten for a bargain. He planned to build a barn out of them by stacking them like bricks (it was to be a sturdy barn), and they were now stacked in several large piles alongside the house next to the piles of two-by-sixes and massive beams he'd gotten at an auction. I laid three twelve-foot two-by-sixes on their edge on the concrete floor and then nailed the short lengths of two-by-fours across to make the flooring. After adding braces to the underside, I painted the bridge with some old blue zinc paint Dad had picked up somewhere, which he suggested would help preserve the wood. Sprinkling sand on the last coat of paint ensured a non-slick surface. Dad helped me balance the blue bridge on the hand cart, and then we trudged together across the field and into the woods, pushing and pulling the wagon. We set large cement bricks on either bank in holes dug to keep them secure. Then we lifted the bridge across the span and set it in place. The bridge was sturdy and a bit out of place amongst the light and dark greens of plants and trees. A son stood tall next to his father, a bridge really more reflective of the father than of the son—sturdy, built to last, and practical too—built upon the wisdom handed down, "if you build something, you build it to last."

Yet, Dad had an undying competitive edge. "The blue really doesn't go well in the woods," he commented. In the next couple of weeks, Dad postponed work on the house to work on his own bridge. He now wanted to span the larger creek so he could show visitors the other side of the stream, where he hoped to grow and harvest trees. His plan was to use an old stump with roots deep in the bank as a mid-way brace. Although there were narrower places to span the creek, this was the place he decided the bridge should go, right over the deepest part of the stream, where the water rushed through a narrow channel into the deep. He built the bridge in two sections using 14 to 16-foot two-by-sixes set up on their edge as I had done. He cut down an old-growth cedar stump and with a chain saw hued out slabs no more than a foot square. He nailed these to the two-by sixes like steppingstones. He didn't paint the bridge. "It'll look better natural," he said. We put each span on the cart and trudged, pushed, and pulled them across the field, through the woods, down to the creek. We carried the spans across my sturdy bridge! Dad had set cement blocks on both banks. We set the first span onto the bank and across the stump. Dad nailed and spiked and wired the span to the stump, and then drove long three-inch diameter pipes on either side of the bridge deep into the gravel creek bed. He also drove pipes on either side of the stump-just in case. Then we lifted the second span across the narrow channel. While I held it in place, Dad nailed the two spans together with spikes. Then he drove pipes deep into the bank on the far side.

Then Dad ventured across. He bounced in the middle a little to test the strength—solid! I stepped out onto the bridge and peered down into the cold water of the deep pool. "It's kind of narrow, and the slabs are a bit uneven," I commented. The bridge was rustic, cedar steppingstones across the deep that blended well with trees and water and glimpses of sky. A father stood tall next to his son, surveying a bridge that had surprised the son, not so practical after all. When visitors came, some would venture only as far as Dad's bridge and then would wait while we followed the hiking trail around the property on the other side of the creek. "My bridge will last a lot longer because it's so well anchored to the bank," Dad would offer with a glint in his eyes. "My bridge has sand on the top and is wide and safe to cross," I would counter. "Where's your sense of adventure?" Dad would challenge.

Once the bridges were in place, Dad set aside a weekend to put fence posts along the backside of the property—on the other side of the creek. The first six holes we dug in concrete-hard dirt until our hands bled from open blisters. Dad decided it would be better to rent a post hole digger. We nearly died that summer weekend, working in the sweltering heat, never sure if in this hole we would hit gravel and suck the auger deep into the ground, which would send us sprawling flat on our faces. We put in all the fence posts which Dad had cut and hewed with a chain saw and ax out of old-growth cedar stumps. This fence was to last! But once we got the fence posts in, we didn't put any barbed wire or fencing up. When visitors would come on the tour of woods and creek, Dad would show them the long line of fence posts with no wire and offer a tour of dreams.

After graduating from college, I married and moved out of Dad's house, and the next year we moved to Chicago, where I pursued my seminary studies. Three weeks into summer Greek we received the phone call: "I have cancer, Grant," words that shattered like splintering wood. The next fall, when leaves are ripening red, orange, and yellow preparing for their descent, Nancy and I traveled home to bury my father. After the funeral, we spent three weeks with Mom in the house that he built. In the shop were tools that he used to create that last project left where he had laid them. I walked alone across the field and through the woods down to the cathedral. My bridge was covered with leaves stuck to the sand—slick as ice. I stood out in the middle of Dad's bridge and listened to the roar of water rushing through the narrow channel and into the deep. I recalled a conversation on the phone with Dad that previous winter. "I was out for a walk in the woods while your mother was at work. Halfway across my bridge, I slipped and fell in the creek. Boy was the water cold." We laughed. I imagine Dad climbing out of the icy water, dripping wet, and then making his way across my "wide" bridge on his way back to the house. But I was glad Dad wasn't hurt, the competition left behind in the concern for one so loved.

After those three weeks, on later trips home to be with Mom, I sometimes wandered down to the creek, and sat alone in the cathedral. But I no longer ventured across Dad's bridge. There's nothing to see on the other side now, only a long line of old fence posts with no wire, and no longer any of an old man's dreams of what might be. Several winters after Dad died a raging winter flood splintered his bridge in two—at the joint. Half of the bridge was carried downstream towards the sea. The other still lies tangled in a jumble of logs and roots. The flood filled in the deep pool with gravel. The high waters carried my bridge a little downstream, but it has since been retrieved and replaced.

One bridge that was once bright blue is now fading to the green and gray of lichens, mold, and moss, and to the brown stains of old leaves. Paint is chipping off. The bridge is still sturdy but vulnerable to high waters and the dampness of rain-drenched air. The other bridge with its long span of rustic cedar steppingstones—a bridge to my father's dreams—is gone, shattered and splintered. What had been so sure, so secure and well-anchored deep in the banks, a bridge we thought would last forever, smashed so quickly in high, raging waters.

And so, we too stand on a narrow bridge, poised between either bank, one fading behind us in darkening shadows, and the other before us like a promise of rest and final peace. We stand peering over into dark pools—cold and chilly—longing to be on the other side, to be in the land of our dreams where the path once more emerges from shadows into the brilliance of sunlight and blue sky. The bridge seems so sure now, so strong and well anchored in the banks—yet, so fragile to floods and storms, bigger and stronger. No, the bridge we stand on is not of our own making, not made of these human hands, nor hewn of cedar and stone. No, we stand on a bridge as elusive and unseen as air and wind and water, built of blood, suffering, and tears. The carpenter is standing on the far bank calling us on, ensuring us that this bridge of grace and love is sure and strong—if only to keep our eyes affixed on the carpenter's face. Yet, he is on the bridge with us keeping our footing sure. When finally, the storms and floodwaters wash the bridges of our own making far out to sea, we will one day find that He is the bridge—and there was nothing to fear. We are left only with the hope of our own home in a house built for us on the far shore, and the walk now hand-in-hand with the architect of this vast cathedral we call life.