Relationship Chapter 2  from a work in progress (To start reading from Chapter 1 - Click here) Bruce Rosenke   © Copyright 2026 by Bruce Rosenke

Photo by Erik-Karits at Freepiks.

Kristy and Grant glance at each other with soft features, almost smiles. In this moment life has changed for them individually. The opening of the senses to stimuli, surely can be nothing short of miraculous! The smell of the snow, the feel of the air, the sights of the stillness, the sound of the silence, the tongue taste of cold lips unconsciously responding to the wonder; all these introduce two young teenagers to a vastness of life outside their experience.

The moment isn’t romantic, but it is bonding. Together their hearts are being opened to the beauty of life not contingent on human activity.

The birds are on to ‘better pickings’, and that’s Ok, life didn’t leave with them. Two tears slide down Grants cheeks, surely he must stand in this place of life until he is dead!

The senses were startled by nearness, slowly all of them ripple out to further grandeur. Now that the chickadees are gone there is zero movement, and the ‘be’ is solid. Two young souls are being introduced to the life-lesson of ‘be’, ‘to be’, and ‘be-ing’. The senses are active and appreciative, and under the stimuli is the solid base of ‘be’.

All of the mind-filling ignorance of the entire population of Turtle Lake; the ‘what’s under the snow?’, the ‘why all this snow?, the ‘are we wasting time?’, the ‘are our efforts going to wash away in the spring, or burn away in the summer?’, and all the other ‘what’, ‘where’, ‘when’, ‘why’, ‘how’ that continually batter against; “Do not look for the big picture, do only what’s in your eyes and hands”, here at this time, are absent in this moment of ‘be’.

At their own timing the humans slowly and carefully turn a 360, catering mostly to the sense of sight. They both hear above them the solid swish, swish. They look up and watch the raven flying above the trail look down at them; through the distance between them Grant feels Kristy giggle. Then he hears her quiet gasp, and looks where she is pointing. Not close, but close enough to glimpse, an owl is gliding, not flying, gliding through the trees paralleling the trail, 3 or 4 feet off the snow.

The humans don’t get to study, but they do glimpse, and that’s enough.

They begin to walk again until a quick movement off the trail catches their attention, they stop, Carson signals them to be quiet and he hides behind a tree. Everything is still, and then Grant and Kristy see Pink on a long strap almost pulling Gwen. Pink has her nose to the snow, she’s on a scent. It’s not quick nor direct, and she seems almost startled when she finds Carson, she barks once, and keeps her attention on him. Carson doesn’t move until Gwen catches up and congratulates her pup.

When the four people gather, Gwen grins, “Pink has a ‘puppy- short attention span’, but a good nose. She’s fairly good with a fresh scent, and scents are short-lived in the snow. Maybe we have a dog!” Dog and handler have some ‘Lovin’, and 4 humans go 3 different directions.

Watching Carson just go walking through the trees off path, makes Kristy and Grant realize that the very deep snow has a sturdy crust, so they go off path. After awhile of walk stop look listen walk, Grant quietly speaks, “The heavy rain, then the hard frost, are an amazing gift from God!”

Kristy hip-checks him solidly and grins, “Depends on your perspective!”

The two slow-walk and quiet-talk, and observe. Strangely, in the entire time they have been at Turtle Lake, neither of them have observed squirrels, nor the varieties of birds. Nothing is still enough to be studied, but certainly are glimpsed, the result being the person’s awe, and embarrassment at their ignorance, and a together praying for an education, of and from, creation.

Other things, more normal to the persons, are also talked about;

how is it possible to walk on this ice, and yet the helicopter door wasn’t froze shut; being as Grants brother is married to Kristy’s mother, what does that make us? They settle on, “Regardless of our relatives, we are friends.”

Grant backs the conversation up to his original topic that got this walk started; “Kristy, I was starting to tell you good-bye. Mr. Hiram and I didn’t get to say good-bye to each other, I feel cheated. I don’t actually know what I mean by that, but I don’t want to feel this way again, so, I think I want to become free to tell people I love them, partly by keeping ‘good-by’ in the conversation. Maybe ‘good-by’ isn’t cool, but it’s quicker than going into a monologue on ‘I’m so glad we had this time together…’. I think there is something very ‘Thank you’ about ‘good-by’.

The walk continues until Kristy’s quivering voice is heard quietly,

“Grant, now I have a problem. This little walk has changed me and the way I move forward; nature has got to become more relevant to me, and now I need you to be more relevant to me. I appreciate how you work and ‘crazy’ with wild abandon, but you are so much more than that! Grant, good-by, or is it more, good-‘be’.”

There has been no destination to this walk, just an ‘un-thought about’ thrill at being able to walk ‘pathless’. Grant realizes it and mentions it. Another light has just come on, the flip side of the multitude benefits of a path, is the wonder of the freedom of no path.

Kristy stops, eyes on the snow, she’s obviously fidgety, “Grant, I never knew so much that I know so little. Dad isn’t here to ‘be’ for me, I also feel cheated. For all of the reasons I have been given this morning to lean into the future, I can’t, not yet. I see the path, I’m just not on it. I want to be, but I’m not. Dad hasn’t given me to the path, he gave me to paths in the past, and he thrilled with the way I walked those paths, what do I do now? I need my Dad to give me in marriage to life!”

Grant stops stepping, and notices that Kristy stopped immediately, they aren’t looking at each other, there’s no reason to assume their thinking about similar things. He begins, “Kristy, what I am seeing I need to have your permission to put in my hands. I want to help you clear space for the buildings at Kristy Kottage. The conditions right now are perfect for cutting down trees and burning the slash. If we can find a long skinny stick that we can push down through the snow to the ground to get an idea how deep the snow is, we can adjust how high above the snow to cut the trees off, leaving a tall enough stump to make saw-logs. We can take them down when the snow is all melted. The trees we cut down each day need to have their branches burned that day so new snowfalls don’t just bury them. The logs can stay where they fall, but the branches will be gone and the site nice and tidy.”

Kristy stays the way she is; methodical, energetic, focused. She knows the step before she takes it, and seldom has to retrace her steps.

Grant stays the way he is; ‘get-er-done’, and have fun while your doing it. Of course he’s only 1/3 of the ‘crazy’ Dunstan boys!

They are late for lunch, that wouldn’t have William’s approval, but they bust into the ‘getting up from the table’ talk, with their own ‘sitting down to the table’ talk. They make their ideas minimally known, Camron calls across the room, “Grant, just marry the girl, we’ll see you in the spring!” There are no dissenting voices!

Grant and Kristy are sitting beside each other at the table. They certainly are not strangers, their friendship has been in group setting, mostly because Grant is convinced he can’t reach her class, and she accepted as fact that she could never break into his ‘inner circle’—he and his brothers ‘are tight’. This morning opened their eyes to the possibility that although their ideas were true, it wasn’t the ‘whole truth’.

Camron’s joke actually is not considered teasing by G&K. Nor by anyone else in the room, none of which have been blind for months. Grant leans his shoulder tight to Kristy’s and whispers, “Kristy, please marry me right now!”

She whispers back, “I’d like that, yes!”

The letter ‘s’ definitely belongs on the end of the word ‘beginning’, as in, ‘new beginnings’, there have been a few this day!

They continue eating, times-a-wastin’! Jacob and Frankie come and say, “You two get to work, we’ll have a supply train at the Kottage in late afternoon.”

Daphne speaks across the room, “Let’s walk 1 1/2 miles out and 1 1/2 miles back for supper, the weather is great and the moon bright.”

Bruce offers, “I’ll keep the home fires burning, and kiss the bride their first trip home!”

Things are getting out-a-hand!

Carson says, “My family will give you this afternoons labour for a wedding present.”

That snow ball got big quick, 4 adults stay behind to prepare supper, everyone else is walking a long way to work very hard—

but not until several pray a marriage prayer over Mr. and Mrs., Grant and Kristy Dunstan.

Who saw this coming today?

William Hiram didn’t attend, except in everyone’s hearts and minds.

Several got some release, ‘William isn’t coming back, but we can make it, we’ll be Ok.’

Not everyone was on site at the same time, nor were they doing the same chores, ‘variety is the spice of life’! Before there was

Land Supporting Life, everyone here was somewhere else doing other things, today that is resulting in various ‘talk while you work’.

The prevailing attitude is joy, these working conditions may last only a few hours, certainly not more than a very few days, weather changes fast and extreme in this country! But on this beautiful day, opportunity reaches to the far horizons, and not one moment is being wasted, and yes the 3 Dunstan boys are on the same site!

The afternoon is going by fast and the newlyweds have not been close enough to touch nor even speak.

Grant is working as he always does, smart, energetic, and with mirth.

Kristy is Kristy, dream, plan, accomplish. Lead when a lead is required and labour in between those few times.

The ‘old crew’ is back together as it was on her Circle Greens project at Hanson Field; Chandy, Ivor, and Carl, are measuring and marking, ‘staying on the same page’ as Kristy, and having to figure it out as they go. Circle Greens was measured from the centre of a big field, the entire project, from measurements to occupancy, was in an open field, the hope for an abundance of tree transplants in the spring was only a vision. Here an abundance of trees are totally in the way of measuring, and the measuring mistakes may not be noticeable on the land, but from the air…let’s just say Kristy cares from the air!

Circle Greens is a circle divided into pie-shaped, 5 acre farms.

This is forest, measured from a 90* angle with cleared strips at 45* between those sides. The cleared strips will be 100’ wide, with 100’ of manicured forest between. Not only that but ‘special’ trees must be preserved and protected, and danger trees must come out. Most certainly this is not a ‘hack and whack’ project! AND, the ‘engineers’ need to stay ahead of the ‘ones who know what their doing’!

Obviously this is not a 1 day, nor 60 day project, but at least now there is a married couple living on site! Kristy Kottage is only a round metal granary, but hey, everyone needs to start somewhere!

By dark, 9 tightly piled large mounds of branches and boughs are lit, and when supper gets here every stomach is empty and longing, and every body is too tired to eat! Kristy and Grant are the only ones that don’t have to walk 1 1/2 miles home! They only have to tend the fires until they are low piles of coals, then, smelling strongly of wood smoke and sweat, go to a common bed and consummate their marriage!

Camron kindly offered to stay and chaperone!

Carson asked where they want their helipad, tomorrow some will come back and build a snow-float helipad.

Grant requests they don’t come too early!

Jacelyn hugs them both and wishes them “true love ‘til the end of time”. She walks away crying, they stand crying, overwhelmed by the idea they may have just set each other up for personal agony. In every marriage the time comes when one is snatched away.

Much of the ‘staring into the fire’ conversation was on how to comfort and care for the widow and orphans.

Now they are in ‘the quiet room’ formerly called ‘perfect place’, sitting in a rocking chair and looking at a book of North American Wild Life. Stan is quite content to sit, almost cuddle, and let Bruce explain the pictures, Stan sometimes points at something, just to confirm to Bruce that his little fingers work also!

It’s a beautiful domestic scene, and when Gwen and Jacelyn come looking for their men, they stand quiet watching, Bruce most certainly is not William, but at least Stanley has someone, and so does Bruce. Stan tries to keep up with everyone else’s energy, Bruce won’t even try anymore, but at this time of day their a good team! The women take their ‘men’ to bed, morning comes early.

Carl and Beth have their 5 children settled down for the night. This is a favourite time of day for them; together alone and inactive, let the body and mind slow down, join hearts by attending to each others ‘receive’. There are some words, lot’s of touch (libido isn’t what it once was), everything participating in ‘be’, ‘to be’, and ‘be-ing’. Spousal communing is the process and reward of marriage, the ‘slow-cook’ of tenderizing.

Conversation that sets the minds racing they have cultivated as a daytime activity, sometimes beginning quite early, but this time of day is for easing into peaceful, restorative, sleep. They don’t yet have a long-term marriage, much shorter than their life experience would indicate, but for Carl and Beth Moses the past has been great and the future is bright, they know their God. And it seems to them a large door is beginning to swing open.

Ivor and Daphne Dunstan are late bloomers in the field of romance. They have spent years in commitment and mutual benefit, but tender oneness is just beginning to appeal to them both. Ivor is embarrassed by how ‘clumsy’ he is, Daphne isn’t yet sure it’s good to receive. Accomplishing life has seemed to them to be ‘get-er-done’, and to ‘get-er-done’ would be the justification of the time on earth given them. They now have 2 married sons that are like them, and now Ivor and Daphne are seeing themselves as ‘short-changing’ their children. Yes they brought them through desperation, but the boys are not tender, someone else will have to lead them there. Perhaps it is this that is driving them to praying together, really praying, and really together. In this also Ivor feels clumsy, and Daphne unworthy.

They had heard William speaking of the ‘ministry of the interior’, and the soul of people and property, but not until today do they feel like maybe there’s something to that, and maybe someday they’ll have understanding. So far this evening they aren’t ready to sleep, maybe quiet ‘speaking to’ and sincere ‘listening from’, will be starting blocks for a fast race over the hurdles. Not in competition, but in communion, racing against the clock.

Carson and Salena are stuck here right now, but when opportunity to leave presents, what are they going to do? On one hand Turtle Lake Land Supporting Life is just what they’ve been longing for, and on the other hand there are fences and walls unlike their history and nature. Carson has been the mentor the Dunstan boys have needed in the area of chainsaws and trees. Carson doesn’t set out to teach or mentor, but if anyone is smart enough to pay attention they can learn much, the Dunstan boys are learning. Salena could thrive here in the area of ‘give and receive’. Cadence has a safe place to ‘become’.

The reality is, neither Land Supporting Life, nor the world at large, know our state of affairs, as we do not know theirs. The essential nature of, “Do not look for the big picture, do only what’s in your eyes and hands”, is the keeper of ‘peace of mind’.

Colin and Ruby Tracy, long on life experience, short on biblical standards of marriage, are learning and pressing forward. They have both spent enough years thinking ‘me’, and now the ‘m’ has to be turned upside down. They are happy with that and not rebellious, yet time and practice are needed. This winter has limited them like they have never been limited, it will be very interesting if they decide to stay, Ruby’s important work at Hanson Field, and with Ansela Ray, can’t be taken over by just anyone.

What does God ‘have up His sleeve’?