It didn’t start with rain.
It started with an ice jam upstream.
The river backed up, slow and relentless, forcing water out across fields, roads, and low ground until it surrounded everything we knew.
First the edges of the yard disappeared.
Then the road.
Then our house sat there alone—an island in every direction.
I remember staring at it, not scared exactly, just confused.
Like the world had changed shape overnight.
And because the water kept climbing, we couldn’t stay.
That’s when Dad fired up the tractor.
Big tires. Tall enough to clear the water.
The only way out.
He drove.
Mom, my brother, and I climbed up and rode on the fenders, holding on while the engine rumbled beneath us.
Everything we needed for the week sat piled in the front loader bucket.
Our entire lives… in a steel scoop.
And off we went.
We rode like that for about a mile.
Through water that had no business being where it was.
Past places that used to mean something—fields, roads, edges of property—all erased into one flat, reflecting surface.
Ahead in the distance stood the huge cottonwood where we met my grandparents.
That tree felt like a lighthouse.
A landmark of safety in the middle of all that water.
When we finally reached the country road, it felt like we had crossed into another world.
We stayed with my grandparents for about a week.
And here’s the strange part.
What should have felt like displacement… didn’t.
It felt like something else.
Like being pulled into a different version of life.
Meals together.
Stories.
Laughter that came easier than usual.
The kind of feeling you don’t recognize as important until years later.
And then the water went down.
Just like that.
The river gave everything back.
What followed was something I don’t think we’ll ever see again.
Morel mushrooms.
Everywhere.
Not just a few here and there.
Gallons.
You didn’t hunt for them—you found them.
Everywhere you looked, they were there.
The ground, somehow, had turned everything that happened… into abundance.
Like the land itself was making up for what it took.
I didn’t understand it then.
I just knew it was fun.
That it felt good.
That being out there, with family, after everything we’d just gone through… felt different.
Better.
Years later, you start to see it more clearly.
How close that moment sat to something else.
How easily it could’ve been remembered as fear.
Loss.
Disruption.
But it wasn’t.
Because of who was there.
Because of how it was handled.
Because, somehow, the people around me made it feel like an adventure instead of a disaster.
The river took the ground out from under us.
But it gave us something back too.
A week I didn’t know I’d carry with me for the rest of my life.
If this resonated with you, you’re not alone.
