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Show books, or legal questions, or politics, or what the fish seemed to be biting this year. At times I wanted to scream, hold out my emptiness like an amputated limb and demand it be acknowledged, but instead I stirred the soup in my cup and waited for it to cool. That is, until the last day. We were breaking camp for the final climb out to the cars. Everyone was busy stuffing backpacks, filtering water, or laying ground cloths in the sun to dry. My aunt and I were folding the tent that I had shared in the past with my husband. We were absorbed in one of the greatest pleasures of backpacking-the economy with which you travel, the fact that each thing has its own place-and all seemed fine. I looked over at Jerry who was busy attending to his own possessions as well as those of the community. At this point in time, he looked as he had always looked. But then so did I. To anyone else, we were the same. I walked over to him. What I said was, I am sorry that you have Parkinson's. What I meant was thank you for taking me into the natural world and showing me how mountains rest theirjired bodies against one another and rivers scrape out plains the size of entire states, how meteors remrnlike swallows every year in August to flash across the sky and wildflowgrs fill valleys so that you can no longer see the trail. What I meant was that I hoped he would find peace, that he would always be able to recognize himself, that he would not be in pain. What I meant was that I felt like I was a failure because John left me, that sometimes when I sat very still on my couch at home loneliness suffocated me, that I could not understand how things would ever feel okay again. What I meant was that I was scared. What I meant was that I would bear witness to his loss in hopes that he would bear mine. 251 |
