The Arc
I spent most of my life in the Sierra Nevada
and on the Kern River.
Not visiting. Living in it.
I took my fourteen-year-old son
with my friends to the top of Mount Whitney.
14,505 feet.
Highest point in the lower 48.
He struggled with the altitude.
I carried his pack when I had to.
We made the summit.
He didn’t thank me.
He latched on to another father of his freind
who told me I was a bad father.
My wife set that man straight.
I let it go.
I worked most of his childhood.
That’s the truth of it.
Absent fathers aren’t always gone —
some of us were just doing the need
so the lights stayed on.
He’s 47 now.
We don’t talk.
I don’t carry drama
any more than I carried his pack —
only when the mountain demands it.
But I know this much.
That boy stood on top of the country
with his father.
Nobody takes that away.
Not time.
Not distance.
Not silence.
The price is steep but not impossible
Post Library – Intelligent People Assume Nothing
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