March 3rd

Dear Dad,

It's late here, but I promise I will return your call.

I completely forgot what day it was till I saw I'd missed calls from you, Meg, and Jasper. Various other family members called too, which I'm grateful for.

I'm not sure how I forgot it was my birthday. Maybe it was my excitement over reaching Mohican State Park, remembering James Fenimore Cooper's book, and the heroic death of the last of the Mohicans.

I went for a hike yesterday afternoon on the Lyons Falls Trail Hike. The falls were beautiful, all the recent rains making for a gushing waterfall that more than did justice to the surrounding countryside.

Ohio is beautiful.

Unfortunately, on the way down I twisted my ankle quite badly.

The rain did more than swell the river, it also caused a lot of mud and I slipped and fell for several seconds before being brought up short by a tree.

I have a bump on my head and a bruise on my ego to prove it.

I lay there for what was probably five minutes, catching the breath that had been knocked out of me, and considering not only possibly needing a trip to the hospital, but also the rest of the return trail to my camper.

Before I was done ruminating on my sorry state, a young couple found me.

I think I scared them, actually. They probably have never been taking a hike and come up on a prostrate woman who may have appeared more dead than alive.

Don't worry, no serial killers have been active in this area in a while now.

I think.

The point is, they helped me down the trail and to my camper, solicitously asking if I needed a ride to the hospital, or for them to call an ambulance. The girl obviously had some sort of emergency training because before she let the guy help me move she checked me for spinal injury and a concussion.

My spine and brain are both okay, thank you very much.

I did crawl into my teardrop, wrap my ankle tightly in an ace bandage, and elevate it for several hours while I read a book and then took a nap.

I woke up around eight o'clock. It was already dark, and I could hear kids playing near my camper and the snap of a fire nearby.

For almost a year now I've kept obsessive track of the days that have memories tangled into them. Your birthday, Mom's birthday. Christmas and Thanksgiving.

The day she died is circled in my calendar. I say circled, but it's actually shaped like a skull because she would find that hilarious.

I have been so careful, but somehow I missed this one. It's probably because my birthday has always been a special day. I always look forward to it, and this would be a good one normally.

If mom was here, she'd definitely have made sure we had hamburgers and watermelon. She would have built the best campfire ever, and we'd have sat in our chairs, staring up at the stars and telling each other stories about the constellations until one of us would not be able to remember any more and then we'd celebrate the contest with a shot of tequila.

Mom hated tequila.

She told me once it's the kind of alcohol where if you mess up once with it, your body never lets you live it down.

I've never messed up with it, but even the thought of buying a bottle so I can have a shot for my birthday is making me more unhappy.

Today I ended up driving to the hospital. I wanted to be sure it was only a sprain, and also wanted to be able to tell you I was being a responsible adult.

So here I am, telling you in a letter how responsible I am, because I may not be able to get the words out when I call you.

The doctor said it's just sprained, but it's bad enough I should definitely stay off it for at least a week, so instead of going back to the Mohican State park I got a hotel room and moved myself in for a week.

I've been soaking in the pool, filching ice from the machine in the hallway and putting it on my ankle, and remembering the hotel in Idaho where I was tempted to dive into the pool and never surface.

I know I've been working on me and my mental health issues for a while now, but it still surprises me when I see small steps toward being a healthier person.

Sometimes I think of me ten months ago, and I wish I could give her a hug. Tell her she's just fine the way she is, even if she's hurting and angry and wants to chuck life away like it has no value.

She didn't need someone to understand though.

She needed someone like Meg to force her to eat when she got sick, or like Tom to protect her from Meg's overzealous love.

She needed Donovan and Darrah and their unhurried way of looking into her soul.

She needed the crashing surf of the Pacific Northwest, and the grand colors of the Fly Geyser.

Well, she really just needed her mom.

We still need her, don't we. I suppose that's an always thing.

But I'm still glad I had all those people who somehow all together gave me what I needed over the last ten months.

Not least you. When I ran, when I was scared to call you, when I knew you would disown me for taking off instead of going back to school.

When you met me in Silverthorne, not just with a heart full of love and a determination to let me do what I needed to do, but with Mom's favorite book.

You took a relationship with me that was burned almost beyond recognition, and you've helped me build it into this wondrous thing.

Thank you for not giving up on me, Dad. I hope one day to deserve you.

But for now, happy birthday to me. I get to talk to all the people who matter most to me today.

I love you very much,

Bo.