The Cave

New Year's Eve was always a big thing in my house. there were huge parties - most of which I was too young to participate in. When I got older, about 18 or so, my parents kept having these parties and went to many themselves. I, on the other hand, stopped going as much. For the next twenty years I celebrated less and less. I just didn't understand it. I didn't understand the alcohol or the drugs or the parties. Instead, I've started to spend the 31st of December watching movies or hanging out with friends. This year, however, I took a trip to Alaska three weeks before New Year's. I didn't come home. I ended up trapped in a cave. For a month, I was in that cave. I didn't know what time it was most of the time, and it got to the point where I didn't care. I spent my time looking for piles of ancient animal manure for the fire I managed to start and melting the snow that had blocked me into the dark cave and searching for insects to eat. I spent the time praying and weeping and thinking over my life. I spent the time dancing and singing. I spent the time using whatever I could to make images on the cave walls. I spent hours sleeping. I spent hours daydreaming. Daydreaming about how things where going on back with my family and my friends; daydreaming about people coming and saving me - daydreaming about what it would be like to die. What God would look like. What Jesus and the angels would look like. I spent a lot of time thinking. A lot of time crying. A lot of time screaming and fighting the demons in my mind.

The first time I saw sunlight was when the rescue team pulled me up with a harness. I was hardly conscious. The air was so cold that it hurt to breath.

The second time I saw daylight was when I woke up in the hospital. The TV was playing a ballet. I loved ballet. Then I realized that I couldn't move my feet. Or my left arm. I looked down and saw that both legs from the knee down were missing and that I didn't have a left arm any more. I let out a sigh and leaned my head back and closed my eyes - going back to the cave.

I don't think that I ever want to leave the cave; and I don't think I ever did.