A year to the day since the great flood of ’23, and the rain sweeps in again, hammering down for hours in the night, and when my phone rings at 4:00 a.m., rousing me from a dream in which I’m riding in the bed of a pickup piloted by an unknown woman who steers with a single, heavily bejeweled hand, I know it has to be bad.
It is bad: The bridge above the Rich’s is gone, the bridge at the bottom of the Mountain Road is gone, the Mountain Road from just past the Giles’ old place and upward is gone, Silver Road is reduced to a single lane, the lower section of Gonyaw is unpassable. And those are just the worst parts.
I drive the dangerous, diminished roads of my town in the dark, a pile of Road Closed signs in the back of my car, windshield wipers slapping, window open to the thick air, rain slanting through the opening onto my arm, into my lap, and I don’t even try to stop it. There seems no point to it. I’m already wet. The damage is already done. At 5, I find Kyle at the end of Norway Road and we travel the remaining roads together, stopping every so often to chat with whomever we meet coming the other way, all men, all in trucks, all wearing baseball caps, all greeting us with a smile and a rueful shake of the head, because while there’s nothing funny about any of it, there is a certain dark comedy at play. I mean, seriously, a year to the day of the previous flood, our little town still hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt from that storm, with the long-promised FEMA relief still dangling like a carrot at the end of the longest damn stick you’ve ever seen? Are you fucking kidding me?
Indeed, you are not.
And I don’t know what gets me thinking about this, maybe it’s just the vulnerability of the moment, the sense of being at the mercy of forces beyond my control – natural forces, bureaucratic forces, forces I cannot name and perhaps are not even nameable in any language I know – but all I can think about is the moment exactly one week prior when I’d left Rye standing in the middle of the vast Montanan valley where he now lives, on the vast Montanan ranch where he now works, after a too-short visit that had seemed shorter still, and for the entire three-hour drive to the airport where I’d soon fly 2500 miles in a direction pointing away from my son, I’d felt as if I might literally not survive. As if my love for him could break me into pieces too small, too numerous, too complicated and messy to ever be put back together into anything resembling their original whole.
Even though I thought this might actually come to pass – indeed, I was nearly convinced of it – and even though many times I thought to turn back, I also knew that I wouldn’t, that his life and mine have diverged in the ways they were always meant to. Which is not to say that we are not still connected, or that our lives won’t intersect again, because surely they will. But it is to acknowledge that he himself has become like the weather: A force beyond my control.
So instead of turning back, I kept driving under that ceaseless sky, putting mile after mile after mile between us. Waiting to see if maybe I’d survive.
Ben Hewitt 
Your writing steals my breath. I’ve driven away from two daughters under Montana skies. They’ve ventured, stumbled, thrived. My beating heart exposed and vulnerable to the mountain valley elements. Elements beyond my power to control.
A New Englander now transplanted to the Colorado Rockies, I send a prayer to the universe that you and your neighbors are able to weather this storm and that it relents.
Your heart will be more full when you see your son again…
Thank you, Greta. Ventured, stumbled, thrived… that sounds about right. Take care and thanks for reading.
Sending positive thoughts your way Ben. (Not that they do any good, but just acknowledging that life is damn tough sometimes.)
Thanks, Katie.
Due to a recent life changing medical diagnosis this really resonated with me. My life is at the mercy of forces beyond my control. Thank you for sharing this. It’s heartbreaking and beautiful.
Thanks, Melissa. I hope you’re doing well and that those forces are being kind to you.
The poignancy of this leaves me breathless. Wonderful writing to the heart of the matter.
Thanks so much, Renee.
Hi Ben –
Rye has fledged. Congratulations to you and Penny on years of instruction, example, encouragement, support, and love. Your years together have enabled him to take wing . . . to fly uncharted territory . . . to explore, engage, and imbibe the mysteries of life on his own. He will always be your son, and the gift you have bestowed allows him now to fly solo. I eagerly look forward to following his “flight path,” and fully anticipate rich and rewarding “reconnections” that are guaranteed to become history in perpetuity.

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Thank you, Kent. Hope you and Myra are doing well.
This post was a tearjerker. I can literally feel how much you miss your son & it kinda breaks my heart. I have no words of consolation, but here’s a good old fashioned hug.
Thank you, Tricia.
Dearest Ben,Your words about leaving your son in that mountain valley instantly placed that horrible lump in my throat where you know the words just struck a nerve. You see, 10 years ago, it was your article in Outside Magazine, given to me by my dad that made my husband (almost ex but we will get to that) and I decide to unschool our then 2 and 4 year old daughters. My husband ordered your book along with all the John Holt books from Amazon so I could read and learn as much about unschooling as possible. My husbands exact words “education is your thing, go in the direction you see best”! My research didn’t end there. I read every unschooling book I could find at the time and the more I read, the more I fell in love with the idea of unschooling and feeling so overwhelmingly blessed that I was going to be able to do this with my children.So off we went and holy hell, life was incredible, the girls were thriving and I felt for the first time in my life that unschooling was the most natural thing I had ever experienced except natural childbirth. I don’t recommend that to anyone! But as the years went by, my husband started to change. He would just all of a sudden start yelling and cussing at me, calling me names, yelling at the girls and it was just the weirdest thing I had ever witnessed. We tried counseling, he went twice and quit. I continued on but then these talks about grand adventures, aka moving to a town where we didn’t know anyone and away from family started happening. Years passed and we moved multiple times. The random outbursts of anger were happening about every 3 months or so but I carried on, determined to keep our family together, determined to keep unschooling. 2019 and we find ourselves in Wake Forest, NC just north of Raleigh. I refused to move anymore and started to set down roots for the girls. He didn’t like that and the outbursts became more frequent. Then even more drastic things started happening and I felt trapped. I had nowhere to go but my family back in Virginia and he had already threatened me that if I left and took the girls across state lines he would file charges against me. Late 2022, my dad, a quadriplegic for 37 years, fell out of his wheelchair and broke his femur. But his blood pressure, blood levels and low sodium put him in the hospital. Since I unschooled the girls, we went home to help my parents. My soon to be ex did the unthinkable. We were gone 36 days and the only thing keeping us from going back to NC was Medicare approving a new leg brace for my dad. My husband filed kidnapping charges against me and used false evidence to get an ex parte order and took the girls away from me. Oh and kicked me out of our house too! This was 18 months ago and I’m still fighting to get my rights as a parent back and everything else that was so unlawfully taken away from me. So a long email to make my point that I totally know how you feel like you wouldn’t survive. The love I have for my girls has literally broken me into pieces and unfortunately they will never go back the way they used to be because it’s 18 months I’ve lost with them. They are 12 and 13 now. I just wanted you to know that I feel your pain. It’s hard to believe that one thing that can bring you so much joy can be the one thing that makes you feel as if you are about to lose your mind because you love them so damn much! ~Laura
Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone
Thanks you, Laura. I’m wishing the best for you.
Once again, you’ve written something that pierces the heart – for the beauty of the words and the relatable sentiment. My boys are 12 and 13 now and I remember so strongly first encountering your work 10 or more years ago. The experiences with your boys you shared with your readers have been like a compass for me and continue to be. I know I have told you that before but it bears repeating. I can already feel a bit of that ache in leaving that has already started as they find their way on the wider world. The comparison of that force of growing up and the force of weather is very apt. You always make me think and, more importantly, feel. Thank you for that! 🙂
Thank you so much, Dawn.
Beautiful work, as always.
Thank you!
Hi Ben, this fall my son is entering grad school, my daughter college, both in another state. I know this feeling of both grief and pride, knowing it is right and good and still feeling like you might break in two. Hope you are well, — Marie Goodwin
Great to hear from you Marie. Thanks so much for reading.
Ben, thank you for sharing the words that some of us can’t put together sometimes. Sadness and acceptance at the same time like that uncontrollable flowing water. I was thinking of you guys when I saw the news of Vermont flooding, was thinking that maybe your neck of the woods would be too mountainous to be affected. Have you read Secret Knowledge of Water by Craig Childs? Maybe more Southwest related, but it just had been on my mind lately while observing the intensity and power of water (or lack thereof ). Take care.
Thank you, Bee. I haven’t read that book, but it sounds very intriguing. Thanks for the recommendation.
IMO the primary job of a parent is to raise children who are independent, self-sufficient, and on track to be productive members of society. If we raise them right they leave home and find their own way through life, bumps in the road and detours along the highway of life being part and parcel of the journey. My kids both live about 500 miles in the opposite direction from me, 1 in Chicago and 1 in Golden, Colorado. I’m always happy to see them and support their choices, even those that I disagree with, but knowing that are learning to be their own independent person makes me happy both for me and for them. I would be unhappy if they weren’t doing their own thing in their own place, as that’s what functional adults do. There was a recent Harvard study that reported that most Americans between 18 and 42 live within 100 miles of where they were raised and 60% of them live within 10 miles of their parents. It seems that our children are in the minority and living beyond 100 miles from us is a healthy thing both for them and for us.
It’s Montana. Not Montanan.
Steve in Montana
Thank you Ben and please stay safe warm and God bless you.