It’s Time

The sun was at his back casting his shadow outline over the multicolored stones that covered the lake bed. I was surprised to see that the dark shadow shape of the man in the water didn’t do much to dilute the colors of the rocks under the clear lake water. It only enhanced their vibrancy. I saw this as one of the most beautiful places in the world but now the only word that comes to mind when I see it is sinister. Why does he keep bringing us back here again and again? This place is only filled with sorrow and anguish. Yet, here we are. Again, staring at the same tableau. Montana’s beautiful, colorful glacial lakes and impossibly blue skies should evoke something in me besides this hollow, gutted feeling that is ever present in the background of my consciousness. That emotion is only so strongly pulled out of me to see the light of day when we visit this place. Those glorious mountains form the backdrop for this memory that is forever etched in my mind…and in my very soul. The etchings are so deep that the wounds still bleed bright red after all this time.

I’ve always dreaded loss, who doesn’t? Loss of any kind can bring us to our knees. But I never imagined the kind of loss that knows no end. That is the kind where you lose someone but have no idea how or what took them away, where they are, why it happened or if they are still alive needing your help. That’s what we are here for…again. Always coming back to where it happened. For what? For hope that a new clue will emerge? For hope that we will look up and see them again. Hope is something that is in short supply for me, but not for him. No, not for the man who’s breath is floating in white puffs around him in the cold air, just like the hope that still emerges from him. Those white puffs, like little clouds surround his head and swirl upward to meet their match in the skies above. It would break him to know that I have given up. I can’t let him know because the memories keep him too fragile. He says he can only keep himself going because I am his rock. He thinks I am implanted and grounded solidly. As far as he is concerned, he is a pebble teetering precariously on the precipice. Little does he know that I am on that precipice too and that I fight the urge to just let go and fall into that vast unknown. I am as fragile as he, but he will never know.

 I watch as he skips another brightly colored stone across the water. This one is red so it’s path is easy to follow. I watch it jump from place to place, leaving ripples in its wake at each landing spot. The ripples forever extend to the next landing place to join with the new stronger ripples that vie for dominance. It reminds me of life. Moving from one challenge to the next. Each one dominating in its moment of strength until another challenge takes the power. Eventually I watch, mesmerized, as that stone sinks to the bottom to lay where it may or may not ever be picked up again.

Life is like that for me. So many emotions like stones sunk to the bottom of a deep well. Emotions that I can’t let out. Robotically I move along handling one thing and then another. There is no life left in me to fight. I only exist in this place where each night I hear them call to me in my dreams and I call back. A call that goes unanswered every damn night. In my dreams they never age, forever frozen in youth. We, I and him, find our own youth a thing of the past. We have been aged by this life of forever waiting. I step closer to him, bearing witness to the graying at his temples, the deep hard lines around his eyes and mouth that weren’t there before this happened. He looks at me with those eyes that are an alarming shade of blue. I once looked at those eyes, so bright that they startled me, and I saw love and excitement. They made me breathless in those first moments when I met him. There was a warmth in those eyes. Now they are hard like flint and cold like ice, the warmth stolen from them. His eyes are a cold vacant place that makes me shiver now, startling to me in a different way. We are forever bound together by the moments that took that part of him. Part of both of us went with them the night they disappeared. 

They were our best friends. Our memories intertwined since childhood. We went to school together, nursery, primary , middle and high school and college. We stood up for each other at our weddings. Everything was shared, together. We were the “Fabulous Foursome.” 

We always found new places to travel to. Places that were unique and would give us memories for the days when we couldn’t just pick up and go so easily. Days when our plans for starting families changed the way we traveled. We had all decided those days were coming soon. Our children would grow up together and share our wanderlust. They would share the love of two sets of adults who were bound by love and friendship that started when we too were all children.

My photographers eye was always searching out new destinations to visit and to practice my craft. It was intricately interwoven into our adventures. The pictures kept a historical photo journal of our lives.

I had picked this place so carefully. Me. I did that. Without my coaxing, we never would have been here on that fateful night. I blame myself.  

I picture us around the campfire the night before. We fished in these waters that were so plentiful. Our catch was so abundant that we went to sleep with bellies full to the point of discomfort. We were so alive, so happy preparing for the hike we would take tomorrow. 

My camera still holds the photos of that trip. It lays in the back of my closet untouched since that day. Never again did I look at those photos. It would hurt so much to see their smiling faces captured in that moment in time. Frozen in eternal youth while time marched on for us taking unimaginable tolls on the people we once were. When I think of them I wonder what adventures we would have had and how different our lives might have been if that night had never happened. I think back to the details. Details? What details? There were none to give us a clue of what happened. Their things, laid out in their tent ready for our morning hike, were still there. Their sleeping bags were still rumpled from the nights sleep. Nothing touched, nothing missing with the exception of them. 

We woke up that morning to a beautiful day. We started the coffee while waiting for them to get up. As the time grew later, we shared a puzzled look and went over to their tent to playfully wake them up. Beating on their tent we called to them, “Hey you lazy bums, get up!” There were no answering giggles or sounds when we called their names. No answering calls. We looked inside the tent and no one was there. At first, we thought maybe they just walked down the path a bit to enjoy the sunrise. So we just started breakfast. We all knew the time we were leaving so we weren’t overly concerned. At first. Then as time passed we felt the worries and doubts creep in. We never felt annoyed or angry that they were late. It wasn’t like them to keep us waiting so we knew something must have happened. We got dressed and went together to look for them. Maybe one of them was hurt. We called their names, we looked for signs, clues to show which way they went but none were there. We weren’t prepared for ‘nothing.’ But that’s what we ended up with. Nothing.

After several hours my eyes were full of tears that threatened to spill. I wouldn’t let them. I had to remain strong. I didn’t know what lay ahead. We knew we had to get help. I stayed at the camp, in case they came back. He went to find a park ranger to report them as missing persons. It was the longest two hours of my life when he was gone. My mind went over every possibility. I checked our campsite over and over. I checked their tent. I noticed they hadn’t taken their watches, canteens, compasses and the other things we all normally had on us all the time. I found that very odd. What was odder still was when I found their shoes and socks under the backpacks that were packed and ready to go. They would never have gone anywhere in bare feet. I felt a chill run up my spine. 

When the park ranger returned I showed him what I found. Once again we tried to retrace their steps, but there were no clues to follow. We packed up our gear and put it in the rangers jeep after it was carefully searched. We could hear the helicopters circling above keeping our anxiety high. We were eventually convinced to go back to the rangers station and give statements to the local authorities. Some of their questions made us feel like we were suspects. We knew they were just doing their jobs but it made it even harder to bear. Soon, we had to return home. Without our friends.

To this day the story keeps arising on podcasts, on crime shows, in news stories and each time it happens our wounds are torn open once again. 

To say that our lives didn’t go as planned is to put it mildly. To say that we have lived in a private hell that we have allowed to perpetuate is true also. We are haunted by the loss and by the idea that we may never know the truth of what happened. But, as I stand here, shoulder to shoulder with this man that has built a life with me, I hear a voice. Is it in my my head? Is it here with us? I look to him and I know he’s heard it too. We both say, in the same breath, “It’s time.” Time for what? I don’t know that answer. What I do know is that this is the day we finally say goodbye. The story may never have an ending and we need to accept that. I think in those two tiny words, “it’s time,”we have been given the possibility of a new beginning. We owe it to them not to live as though we disappeared with them. We owe it to them to live out the dreams we all had. We need to do it for us and for them. We finally are able to smile as we remember them and what we shared. I finally see the warmth come back into his eyes. I grab my phone and take a picture of us to remember this day and this place. It’s the first picture I’ve taken since that fateful trip. It will go into a new history of us just beginning again. It’s time.