Post 6
As I descended the mountains skirting along the Rock Forest, one of our guides gestured for me to pause and wait. I was still quite a bit ahead of everyone else so I was unaware of the drama unfolding above me.
My roomie was in trouble. Mentally confused, speaking nonsense and struggling to breathe, she was being carried down the mountain by four men as the guides rushed to get her oxygen.
She wasn’t the only one struggling, others were sick, but all of this was happening out of my sight. I only knew it was cold and windy so I tucked in behind a protruding rock for shelter.
Valerio eventually appeared and nodded for me to join him. He explained that where we were standing was a passageway for souls. On either side of us rose the shards of the Rock Forest but directly in front and behind, the rocks did not “grow” allowing the wind to pass from mountain to valley unobstructed. I understood I was standing in a portal through which our ancestors traveled to join the living and that I was to carry Clayton to the ancestral side.
Valerio led me behind the rocks, held my hand as we carefully navigated the snow and ice covered ledges until we came upon a sloping field of beautiful stones. He gestured and said, “Walk until you know where to let him go. Then kneel down and offer him to the stones and the earth and pray and say your goodbye.”
Valerio sprinkled my hands with Aqua de Florida and blew mapacho around my head. He sang and prayed with me until I felt ready to walk and then he stepped behind a large stone to give me privacy. I could hear his singing as I slowly navigated the field of stones.
There was a large, flat, beautiful grey stone streaked with orange that felt…right. I positioned myself to see its view, a rolling expanse of the Andean landscape that was peaceful and stunning and perfect. Yes, that felt right. I knelt and pulled out my green plastic bottle, sprinkling the white, bony ash around the rock’s edge. The mossy earth held his ashes, they did not blow away.
I reached down and took a fragment of bone between my fingers, remembering how Clayton always held my hand, driving in the car, walking on the sidewalk, watching movies on the couch, sitting pool-side for Ceci’s swimming lesson. The instructor remarked one time, “I see all the parents come and watch their kids. None of them hold hands. You two, that’s love.”
It was.
It was love.
Maybe we didn’t get enough time in our marriage for it to be anything else. Maybe the speed of meeting, marrying, moving, having a baby, starting two businesses in less than nine years didn’t give us the time to grow apart. We were too busy growing together.
Yes, we were human and there were arguments. There were fights where doors were slammed and locked for good measure. There was the day he asked me to fill the ice-cube trays before putting them in the freezer, when I was thirty weeks pregnant. A day that will live in infamy. But for the most part, we got along, we made it work, we liked each other. As Clayton said all the time, “We’re a good team.”
We were still a good team. Talking to Clayton, feeling supported by him, that hadn’t changed. He was still fixing things from the other side, providing for us, even leading me to the right school for Cecilia. That’s not an exaggeration.
After taking a tour of a school on O’ahu, the principal called me directly and said, “I think we’re almost related.” Turns out she’d grown up in the same Tulsa church with Clayton’s family. Her grandmother used to pass him candy after Sunday services.
The structure of our marriage had obviously changed. I joked to friends that I was now in an “open marriage” because that’s how it felt - that Clayton and I were still bound together, still in union, but you know, without the monogamy. So it came as no surprise that as I balanced the bone fragment on my fingertip, I heard Clayton whisper inside my brain, “This one is for you.”
I knew exactly what he meant. He was talking about my Big Plans. Before I left for Peru, I invited all his family to join us in Honolulu. On the anniversary of his death, we’d board a boat, scatter his ashes in the sea and have a luau. It was going to be a Whole Thing.
Clayton’s quiet whisper was a tidal wave of truth. The Vegas theaters, those were for him. The boat and luau would be for his family but this moment, just us in a field of stone, this was for me. A loving warmth spread through my ribs and I knew it was time. I whispered my goodbye. There were no tears, no cathartic release. Just peace.
I stood and walked back to Valerio. He sang and prayed over me again. He offered me snow from the mountain and I ate it, ingesting the majesty and miracle of those lands, of that moment, now forever in my blood. I thanked Valerio, hugged him, so grateful for his wisdom and kindness.
Heading back to our bus, I stole one last glance at Clayton’s new resting place. Looking over my shoulder toward the Rock Forest, I smiled. Flying through the passageway, the portal where I’d left my husband, an eagle soared. I watched for a moment as that huge bird slowly circled, gliding higher and higher until I could see him no more.
Yes.
Yes.
This one was for me.
