**I'd like to make note that this post was started a few weeks ago at which time the charger for my laptop literally burned up. If not for my lovely wife braving the Apple store for me, it may have taken me even longer to get my laptop back online. That said, this hike took place a while ago, but its significance still resonates with me every time we go up.**
Before Amos was born a good friend of mine talked to me about what it is like having a baby and how it is tough for guys like he and I, ardent outdoorsmen, because there is not a whole lot that we can do with him until he gets a little bigger and less fragile. He said, "Get one of those kid carrier backpacks and take him hiking as soon as he can. It will save your mindset, and the baby will love it too." Amos was born and I completely understood what he meant. When Amos was about six-months old we got him the backpack. Every chance I could I loaded him up in the pack to hit the trails, and we both loved it. He would giggle and coo all the way uphill and back. I was a beaming daddy. I had all kinds of visions of the adventures we'd be able to take him on. Then soon after he was diagnosed with Leukemia, and everything stopped. Everything. Those visions of family outdoor adventures shattered like glass. While he was in the hospital fighting for his life I would daydream of the day he would be on my back giggling and soaking up the sunshine on the trails in the mountains again. In those darkest days it gave me something to look to for hope.
^The next morning I loaded up Amos and our favorite four-legged hiking partner, Murphy, and we were off.
^All loaded up and ready to go in the lot, and he was a bit uneasy. As much as I'd hoped he would be all fired up like he would get when we first started hiking together over a year ago, it made sense that he was apprehensive after a whole year in and out of the hospital. He was unsure, and I knew that meant I would be starting all over again getting him excited about hiking with me. With a pocket full of Goldfish crackers, juice, and a binky I was ready.
^He remained uneasy for a while up the first switchbacks of the trail, but to my delight it did not take long before he came back around in lockstep with my nostalgia. Soon enough he was hollering and fist pumping like the old days.
^Strong Creek Canyon was our destination as it is a short, mellow, and shady trail along Strong Creek where Murphy can get plenty of drinks throughout and Amos can play in the creek on rests. Passers by probably wondered at the stream of tears running out from under my sunglasses as I did my best to hide it from them, but surely I received a few double takes. Whatever, I don't really care about much these days, let alone the opinions of strangers on the backyard trails.
^Strong Creek, strong boy.
^Leaves. For most of us, and even most kids by his age, green leaves on a summer time trail is no big deal. For Amos, on this day, it was mind blowing. As such, watching him lead me around by the index finger from tree to tree,...
^… across bridges, and over rocks was mind blowing for me. Coming from a lifestyle of the wildest adventures in some of the most remote mountain ranges of the planet, and here I was in the same kind of awe at the sight of an almost-two-year-old boy seeing the leaves on the trees and hearing the babbling of the brook like it was his first time all over again. There was a time when I was in the shadows of uncertainty as to whether I would ever see this day with him again. I clung to the thought of it for hope as he lay critically bloated and breathless on a ventilator in a pediatric intensive care hospital room. A vision of this day was the distant light I kept telling myself was at the end of the tunnel of his cancer fight even though I could not see it clearly.
^Looking back over my shoulder at this sight of my smiling bouncing boy giggling and...
^So today we win. Tomorrow is another day. Who knows what any of our tomorrow's will bring, but today we are happy. So today we will be grateful for even the chance to be happy again. People all over have real problems everyday, serious problems. Others have problems more or less serious then some, and severity is such a relativity that I no longer feel like I can have any perspective on anyone's life. I only know that on this day, on that trail, with this dog, and with this boy pumping his fists in the air while snugly propped up on my back, all is right in our world again at the moment. That is all I ever hoped for in those darkest hours of his cancer battles, and maybe all any of us can really ever hope for in our whole lives. It is how I want to live now, and this tiny little giggly boy who can barely talk or walk taught me that.
