When I was growing up, the muddy flow of water that is Big Branch Creek was a winding path of adventure.

This creek runs behind the house where my childhood best friend lived. We ran to its edges after a storm passed and sloshed in the mud. We slid our bare feet over its slippery rocks on sticky summer afternoons. We grumbled when a long rain came and its swollen waters were too dangerous to play in.

We followed its journey over hills, into gentle valleys and through nooks and crannies. Sometimes we fell into the water and shivered home in soggy socks and shoes. On its banks we built forts out of branches and old bed sheets.

Big Branch Creek runs through North Raleigh, beginning north of Spring Forest Road, under Millbrook Road and many twists and turns later empties into Crabtree Creek.

Along the way it flows near the house of another friend, whose mother died in 1984. My friend was 10 that year, and I had just turned 11. A group of us who had explored together now sat beside the creek's ever-moving water. We still wandered and played, but the adventure had changed. My friend, of course, felt the shift most deeply, but the rest of us sensed a glimmer of it. Perhaps we hugged our own mothers a little longer and a little tighter than we had before.

If the creek had represented an amazing world to us, it now had tears running through it.

As an adult, I've forgotten much of the meanderings of Big Branch Creek, and I've fallen in love with much larger, more grand gatherings and bodies of water.

I've watched the Niagara River journey quietly, gradually thickening up until it plunges to create the cataract of Horseshoe Falls. We've traveled around Lake Superior and gathered pebbles from its shores. Lake Huron and Georgian Bay's clear waters shimmer and their turquoise hues cast spells in the afternoon sun. I've studied clouds as they've crept over these waters and the scent of pine and rain fills the sky.

I've stood at overlooks at the Grand Canyon and pondered the unclear Colorado twisting and turning its way through eons and eras of rock layers. Closer to home, along the Colonial Parkway near Williamsburg, Va., the James River beckons with its steady current of water and history.

Until a couple of weeks ago, I had not thought so intently about Big Branch Creek for quite some time. But at about 3 a.m. on a Saturday morning, sirens awakened me. They sounded closer than usual, and their volume didn't fade into the night. I said a prayer for all to be well before I drifted back to sleep.

That same Saturday on the 11 o'clock news, a fire was reported along a street that sounded nearby and familiar. It was across Millbrook, but still near enough for the sounds of alarms to reach us. A lady died in the fire, and her husband was taken to the hospital. Another prayer emerged, this time for solace and healing.

It was their neighbor who ultimately reminded me of the creek. He tried to explain his feelings, apologizing for the flow of tears, creating lines of water until he wiped them away.

I went to our Raleigh map and located the street basically where I thought it was. Perpendicular to it, a skinny blue line named Big Branch Creek runs before moving beyond Millbrook Road and on to the places I played as a child.

I've watched this water skip over rocks and roots. Sometimes tears swim alongside the many drops of joy. They create a muddy flow of water the map may call Big Branch Creek.

But I wonder if, perhaps, it is just another metaphor for this winding path called life.