Anyway, I decided I had to get the plaque out of my van and up there. I will be taking Jazz, and leaving the state. The plaque needed to stay with you. I can hear your laughter ridiculing me now "you spent how much on that thing? Oh Great, you could have bought something worthwhile for THAT!"
It was hot. I had to borrow a big mega drill from work; this, after having the shop drill holes in the plaque for me. Then I went to the hardware store, and bought a big box of brass socket head screws.... not that I needed 200 of them, but because they came with the socket drill bit, which I didn't have, so yeah, I bought the entire box.
Jazz inhaled a foxtail on the road just before we got there. "Oh great", I thought, "I'll be getting another plaque for her to put next to yours".
I've never seen a ranger up there. I did that day; grading the fire road. So I threw my sarong over the plaque, my backpack sat on the bench, and I took photos til he passed.
Jazz just layed there trying to snort the foxtail out, protesting it's presence; unintended, unwanted, like your dying was.
It took two trips, one vet bill, but I got it done. The lake will always be you for me.... all the trails, the map we spent an entire night making, the names... arguing over what names to give the trails...
I hiked the other end tonight; it was windy, unusually windy and cool for this time of year. As Jazz and I sat on the bench, tears came, tears I haven't felt in quite a few months. The words of a stranger came to me, a stranger yet one who befriended me yesterday. Her words were "sit, and let the thoughts come, go through you, but don't interact with them". Funny how a call about a mortgage debt goes astray.... I wondered if this one was being "recorded for quality purposes", and if so, she'd probably lose her job for addressing the human element, not just the financial.
As the wind was blowing, I was praying, no, more like pleading, to blow these thoughts away.... to have them blow right through me and be taken off to a distant land..... and immediately as I write this, I am struck by the lyrics of the song you shared with me....from "Soul Meets Body", the following refrain now echos
Cause in my head there’s a greyhound station
Where I send my thoughts to far off destinations
So they may have a chance of finding a place
where they’re far more suited than here
It's a very cold July night Trailrunner, PPW, Heartworm. I've put these things where they belong, I hope. I leave them behind so that others may know of you too; that others may wonder who was this man who so touched someone's life; what was he like; and for those that did know you, that they may remember you always upon this hill, see you running yet.
I was never very good at letting go of anything.... maybe because what little I had, I treasured.... treasured it all the more because I know the things of this world pass through my hands, my heart... I cannot hold onto them. But I so want to, for a while, belong to someone, have someone belong to me, to share our lives, to befriend one another.
and here I've gone again breaking your "two sentence rule".
