Rides, ramblings and rants on a motorcycle.
- We are scientists, too!
10.16.2006,10:06 PM
The Commemorative Journey: In Memory of One I Loved
Losing someone close to you never misses its aim at the heart. The arrow sails straight and true, dead center, piercing your heart and all the memories and emotions come tumbling out like a broken piñata. You’re overwhelmed with the past, the present and future, each pulling strings on your grip of life when confronted by death and loss. Although no one can claim immortality, part of us goes with that person just as part of him or her remains with us. And no matter how many years separate the last time paths crossed, the impact is still the same as if it were yesterday.
Despite his college education, he chose to work with his hands and be close to what gave him solace: the outdoors. We spent many hours, sometimes days at a time, in the forests of Maine and New Hampshire: exploring old logging roads, hiking up mountains, finding mushrooms so large they filled a frying pan, hunting birds in the overgrown meadows along the woods, spending several days at a cabin by ourselves. He would hunt woodcock for me to cook on the cookstove. Memorably, we often sat on the truck tailgate surrounded by stars and let them speak to us.
Just as I found the lake, a bright blue sky and the sun smiled overhead. This was going to be a good day.
I found a spot to park and unload my gear a few hundred feet from the edge of the cliff overlooking the massive lake. As luck would have it, an empty shelter nearby would serve as my reclining area and a place to keep dry should it rain. The tent, dwarfed by the shelter, looked like the cocoon it would be at night.
I received the news last week. Despite the twenty-two years since we had seen each other, his death left me with a heart full of pain. Surrounded by whirling memories and all the associations, I chose to honor him and his passing as he would have liked.
Despite his college education, he chose to work with his hands and be close to what gave him solace: the outdoors. We spent many hours, sometimes days at a time, in the forests of Maine and New Hampshire: exploring old logging roads, hiking up mountains, finding mushrooms so large they filled a frying pan, hunting birds in the overgrown meadows along the woods, spending several days at a cabin by ourselves. He would hunt woodcock for me to cook on the cookstove. Memorably, we often sat on the truck tailgate surrounded by stars and let them speak to us.
I loaded the bike with camping gear by the light of the porch lamps before the sun rose. A gentle light rain seemed appropriate for my leave-taking and we rode out into the early morning darkness. I wanted to watch the sun rise as I rode to herald this journey. As I rode north, the sun rose next to me and behind the clouds to turn the sky a light blue-grey.
Hours later riding east, clouds parted with sunlight filtering through as if someone had airbrushed lines in shades of blue and white from the cloud bottoms to the earth. It hinted a promise of a sunny day ahead.
Just as I found the lake, a bright blue sky and the sun smiled overhead. This was going to be a good day.
I found a spot to park and unload my gear a few hundred feet from the edge of the cliff overlooking the massive lake. As luck would have it, an empty shelter nearby would serve as my reclining area and a place to keep dry should it rain. The tent, dwarfed by the shelter, looked like the cocoon it would be at night.
Shedding the hot insulated gear, I donned the Camelbac knowing I would need the water later. The camera slung criss-crossed over my shoulders, I started out on a hike along the forested rim of the cliffs that ran the perimeter of the lake.
During the five-hour hike, I took him with me and we remembered all the things we used to do together: the many conversations and the comfortable silence we shared. As I hiked I pointed out the beech, oak and maple trees. And, Oh look! A tall Cedar tree; arborvitae, the ‘tree of life.’ The feather-like evergreen branches heavy with glabrous white-blue berries and its exfoliating shaggy brown bark. Remember how you liked to crush a few scaled leaves between your fingers and breath in the scent as if it were a forest rose?
Do you remember when we sat on a ledge like this, you trying to convince me of the musical yet logical Latin language? Marveling at the colors and form of lichen growing on granite, asking me why some stems are round and some square, or how do leaves turn colors: How does the maple tree know to turn red?
Do you remember when we sat on a ledge like this, you trying to convince me of the musical yet logical Latin language? Marveling at the colors and form of lichen growing on granite, asking me why some stems are round and some square, or how do leaves turn colors: How does the maple tree know to turn red?Remember teaching me to identify animal footprints and shapes of their scat, identifying songs of birds, predicting flight patterns of woodland and meadow birds, and the time we were walking in the White Mountain forest and turning the bend to stand in front of a huge bull moose? Remember the hours upon hours sitting outside in the black of the night trying to outline all the constellations in the sky and recite their mythology, and when you woke me at 2am to watch a meteor shower?
I remember watching you play guitar, lost in the music in your head. And you teased me for my mistakes when I built my cabin, and your patience in teaching me how to work with wood by ‘thinking’ like it? Helping me build the dormer in the loft, nailing a new roof and you gently talking me down off the roof when I froze in panic?
I took you with me as we walked through the forest, the deciduous and coniferous woods that we loved. Ever present was the lake next to us. Sometimes the trees would part or a path beckoned to the edge of the cliffs to reveal the vast blue water beneath us, contrasted by the buff-whiteness of the sandstone cliffs. The Tall Tree of the Forest that was you and the Lady of the Lake was I. As we walked along the dark path with patterns of filtered light from above, we shared many memories.
Just before sunset I found an expanse of white ledge that overlooked the large lake. I sat and watched the sun set, smiling. We have to take the bad times with the good, but it’s all the good times that I remember now. You knew why I had to leave and you didn't stop me.
Your body may be gone now, but your spirit remains here with me, and your blood remains a part of our daughter. She’s more like you than you knew; I see you when I watch her walk and move, the dimple in her chin, the restlessness and sometimes-troubled mind. At times it is your eyes that stare back at me.
I hope they cremate your body and spread your ashes out and over Streaked Mountain, the wind catching them and taking you to flight. It was there that I have ingrained images of our commonness.
The sun lit the lake and the clouds in the sky with pink and lavender as it set. I said my goodbye and let you go.
I let them all go.
Labels: Adventures
