It is about the difference between peace and surrender.
It is about understanding that some lines in the dirt are not just dirt, and some fights are not really about what was taken but about what happens to you if you let it stay taken.
So if you ask me now whether I would do it again, I can answer plainly.
I would rather never have had to.
But yes.
I would call Harold. I would call Ruth Ann. I would call Curtis. I would stand on that ridge at sunrise with the court order in my pocket and the weight of my grandfather’s voice in my chest. I would watch the bulldozer blade hit the bank. I would feel the ugly heaviness of it. I would know that nothing about it was easy.
And I would still say, “Do it.”
Because the lake was never just a lake.
It was a question.
And the land was waiting to see how I would answer.
THE END
