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Show through, what it would have been like to make the trip to Takahulu, the only comfort I can take is in knowing my father had company. As he had several nights before over the campfire, my dad brings all of us onto the raft, a raft on which Jerry is not dead and they are not alone. Weaving together stories of the past, he creates a net that holds all of us, a net that carries him to safety, to home. The morning my father arrives at Lake Takahulu, I write in my journal that I am going rafting in two days down the Snake River. Worried that the time away from my desk is time poorly spent, I imagine writing an essay about the experience, what it is like to float down a river that begins in the mountains and runs to the sea. Mostly I complain about the dog and how easily I am distracted by household projects. Still, this is the last entry I have before I learn of Jerry's death, the last recorded narrative of what my life was like when Jerry was alive, my father whole, and my son the size of a period. I like to imagine that at the very moment Jerry slipped the ropes that bind us to this planet, my son Aidan was conceived, so that for the briefest of moments, the past, present, and future stood together and recognized one another. I like to imagine that the suffering my dad experienced, pain that has haunted him every day since his return, is measured out among us, so that we all carry part of the burden. I like to imagine that the stories I tell here, like the stories my dad told me as a child and the ones he recited as a way to remain sane on the river, have the power to reach across distance, and time, and death and connect me to him, and him to Jerry, and Jerry to Aidan. Jerry can no longer tell his story and I must carry Aidan's for him until he is older. Someday he will carry mine and I will tell my father's and loss will be found in language. 253 |