What the Moon Saw and Other Secrets of White Rock Lake

When I was growing up my Mom had a book by Brian Goldsmith: What the Moon Saw. It was a book for learning concepts of "heavy" and "light"; "long" and "short"; "weak" and "strong" through a dialogue with the Sun. I always thought it was puzzling to think about what the moon "Saw" because the last line of the book was how there was one thing the Moon never saw: the Sun.

I don't think it's true actually, because the moon's light comes from the Sun. It was the first time I realized an author can say anything. And the Moon sees everything.

Today has been a sad day. For almost two weeks I've been watching the news story about a young couple that left their car just after midnight, with the doors open just a few hundred feet from the shore of White Rock Lake, and on the other side, just a few hundred feet from where we live. Weltzin (the young lady) filed a restraining order against her estranged boyfriend two weeks before they abandoned the car.

In the days following their disappearance the woman's sister posted flyers on the telephone poles on our street. I don't think I've ever seen a flyer for missing persons in our neighborhood. Their smiling faces: as once a happy couple, parents of children, haunted me.

It rained one night and the paper signs dripped away from the tape. Their images disappeared, too.

For a few days we saw "police activity" around the woods between our house and the lake. I started following "Help Us Find Weltzin" on social media: a page started by her hopeful sister. I watched the interviews of her mother.

Last weekend they took the rescue boats out into the water. What do they know? I wondered. I prayed they wouldn't find anything. It was a very cold and wet weekend. I tried not to think about the divers. Work no one wants to do: honorable, compassionate work.

This morning I heard the helicopters before I saw them. They hovered too long for it to be a passing interest. I went to the feed: "Body pulled from White Rock Lake. Rescuers Boat Capsizes During the Retrieval". Her sister wrote in big black letters on the "Help Us Find Weltzin" Facebook Page: "Please people stop speculating: IT'S NOT MY SISTER".

There were rumors of a fisherman. Not Weltzin or her husband Alfonso Hernandez. And now a few hours later: the body is confirmed to be that of Alfonso Hernandez. It's impossible to think about it, but it happened just over the "sledding hill" of our Lakewood home. And this discovery is just half and none of the mystery. Only the moon knows what happened on that dark night.

The Moon and the Lake have to see a lot of things that are unimaginable. I am sitting with this weekend--the veracity of truth. Yes, the lake is a beautiful organism: luminous at sunrise, a moment I have captured thousands of times. The Lake is an organism and organisms can't always be beautiful. To be alive is to live in truth. But those grasses are also the grasses someone stumbled through while no one was watching: the same grasses I walk often. Under the same moon.

This reminds me of a line from a Mary Oliver poem: "I don't know what a prayer is" and in this case I don't know to pray for the man pulled from the lake, alleged to have hurt her? To pray for their children and parents? To pray for her sister who spends her days fighting still hoping Weltzin will be found alive? I'll pray for all of them: sit for a few minutes for each of them: for the police, the detectives, the boat rescuers who went into the frigid waters today. I'll pray that those working to end domestic violence will be given what they need to keep working to protect the victims. I'll pray the restraining orders work next time. I'll keep on writing and breathing. And looking at the Moon. And Walking with the Lake. May she never be alone.