Nancy Ohaugherty

Cascading Joy

It was a long day in the heavy rain, but it was my purpose. Hauling water from the stream that was over a kilometer away from the shelter was my job. When I look back over my fifty-three years I can’t remember when I didn’t have a job that didn’t involve water. As a child I watered the horses and then as a teenager I was a lifeguard at an amusement park, in college I watered the plants at a garden center, and finally I worked in IT for a bottled water company. Until three years ago all those jobs were hard work, but they were never lonely or desperate work. Now everything is lonely and desperate.