For Mommy
Originally published in 2008
“Dad?”
“Yes son.”
“Why did mommy have to die?”
“We all have to die someday buddy.”
“I know,” nine year old Trevor paused and took a deep breath. He let it out in a sigh, “But why did she have to go when I was just a kid? Why couldn’t she wait until I was grown up. Now she won’t ever see me grow up.”
Bart Thomas stopped in the trail and turned back towards his son. Trevor stopped walking and looked up at his dad. He searched his father’s face for an answer. Bart knelt down in the packed trail of dried leaves and dirt until he was at eye level with his son. He adjusted the butt of the .44 magnum revolver he carried in case they crossed an aggressive bear, so it wouldn’t poke his belly as he crouched before the boy. He put his hands gently on his son’s shoulders and looked into his eyes.
“I know it’s hard buddy. And I’m afraid I don’t have all the answers. I wish I did.”
A tear streamed from Trevor’s eye and ran down his check. It stopped at the angle of his jaw line, held on for a moment then stretched until it broke from his skin and dripped onto the collar of his shirt.
“I know you miss your mother. I miss her too. But we can’t get her back. We just have to live in such a way so that we can to go to heaven when we die and we’ll see her again. Then you can tell her all about the things you did here.”
“Why did that man have to kill my mom?” Trevor shook as mournful sobs took him over.
Allison Thomas had been killed three months earlier in a car accident. The man in the other car, Leonard Cull, had been high on marijuana and cocaine. He failed to yield coming into the major round-about on Dowling Road and the Seward Highway in Anchorage.
Allison’s little Ford Focus had slammed into the front fender of his massively lifted pickup truck when he lurched in front of her. The small car offered little protection against that kind of collision. Her car wedged under his truck at thirty five miles per hour. Even though the air bag deployed, Allison suffered massive head injuries. She died later that night in the hospital.
In spite of the fact that the man had been intoxicated, his lawyer managed to get him off with only a six month jail term and a revocation of his license. Four months of his sentence was suspended and he was free to walk the streets eight weeks after Allison’s death.
Bart had been furious, but there was nothing he could do. He had to put his and his boy’s lives back together. His older son, Jason, turned eighteen just before the accident and had left for college a month ago. His younger brother Trevor now faced the loss of his beloved mother, mixed with a sense of abandonment by his brother. Bart felt a strong need to build a close relationship with his youngest son. He needed to help him overcome the pain that threatened to bury him.
That’s why they were out in the woods on that morning. Hiking is what they had both loved to do since Trevor was able to walk. Neither Allison nor Jason enjoyed hiking. Flat feet had made it a miserable venture for both. Until Trevor was old enough Bart had to trek in the woods alone if wanted to get close to nature. For the past two years he and his little buddy took regular walks, often overnighters, into the vast woodlands of south central Alaska.
Since the death of Allison, they had not taken many walks, and none had been over night. But now it was time, Bart felt, to get back to their regular lives and to return to the things they enjoyed.
They were in an area along the Glenn Highway east of the city of Palmer, about ten miles past Sutton into the heavily wooded trails of the Matanuska Mountains. The spoken purposed of the hike was to do some fossil hunting. In reality they were mainly just trying to get their minds cleared of the pain and stress that had filled the past months.
After Trevor regained his composure they moved on towards the mountains. He walked beside his father on the worn footpath that lead to an area they had been successful in the previous summer. That time they had brought back several sea life fossils, some fossilized leaves and two hand sized pieces of mastodon ivory.
The area was two miles off the main trail. They turned onto a barely visible animal track that lead into the depths of the forest. Bent weeds and occasional broken branches indicated that some other hikers had recently been through, perhaps even the same day.
They chatted a little as they walked, but mostly just listened to the sounds of the forest and let their minds drift on the song of the birds and the soft rustle of the breeze through the leaves.
The trail took a turn around a bend in the side of a stony outcrop that jutted from the high steep slope beside them. A hundred yards ahead, just past the outcrop of rock, Bart remembered there was a wide clearing of several acres that the previous summer had been a wonderful surprise for them. It was filled from edge to edge with brightly colored wild flowers between which small yellow butterflies fluttered ecstatically. He was sure the sight would brighten his son’s eyes and lift his mood.
The sun was high in the bright blue, cloudless afternoon sky. Shafts of sunlight shot like lasers through the trees and illuminating bright spots on the forest floor in which occasional small animals sat and warmed themselves.
As they rounded the bend beside the rock Bart and Trevor froze. The wide open field was there, but it was not full of flowers. Ten foot tall stalks of leafy marijuana spread over every square inch of what Bart had expected to be a beautiful scene. Anger and disgust quickly boiled inside him. The quantity of the drug he saw spread out across the field was likely worth tens of thousands of dollars on the streets. Bart hated the image of the plant.
The common perception was that potheads were harmless because the drug induced little more than lethargy and the munchies. Bart knew differently. The man who had killed Allison was high on marijuana.
“What kind of plant is this dad?” said Trevor, “I’ve never seen it before.”
“It’s marijuana.”
“The drug?”
“Yes son.”
“It’s so big,” the boy stared up at the tall plants.
Bart took out his cell phone to call the troopers. This would be a very good bust for them. He flipped the phone open and looked at it with dismay. No reception. The mountainous terrain blocked the cell towers in Palmer and Sutton. He’d either have to walk back out to the highway to get reception or climb to the top of one of the peaks. Both were the same distance.
He shoved the phone back into his pocket and decided they would finish the day’s fossil hunt then call in the evening when they returned to the vehicle. If necessary he could even stop at the troopers station in Palmer on the way back that evening. They continued on around the field, keeping to the trail. Trevor looked up at the massive plants with wide eyed wonder.
“So this is what the man had who killed mom was smoking?”
“Yeah. Let’s keep walking.’
As they passed the musky smelling green plants something caught Bart’s attention. He paused, holding out his hand to Trevor.
Voices drifted from ahead of them. Someone was coming their way.
