Unscathed Haven

As I approach the broken bridge, stone foundation still in place, I hear the rushing of the river. The trees are old, Oak and Pine. They cover the old, now empty, campsite with striking emerald hues as the sun shines through their leaves.
Most notable is the young and yet old Oak growing right on the old stone foundation. Its roots twist and turn above and below the dirt and stones. It hums with energy and spirit. It’s young in that it is one of the newer Oaks to have grown on the abandoned campgrounds but old enough that it would take three people to link hands all the way around the wide base. We claimed this as our Oak.
The river sings between the stone base on either side of this broken and burnt down covered bridge. All that is left is the stone founding, all traces of wood from the bridge gone, of this old carriage road.
Dangling my feet above the water, rushing and singing down its course, I feel the health of this little patch of unscathed heaven. Health that once graced us.
Sitting here, on this old stone slab, I lean against one of the roots of our Oak, my only comfort left alive. As I sit and listen to the rushing river I remember the days when we were younger, no more then preteens no longer clinging to their mother’s aprons. I remember when we would run circles around this old and young Oak while holding hands and careful of the now massive roots.
It was this paradise that we met. You, a gawky girl in dresses of pink or purple. Me, a tomboyish girl trying to be ‘one of the boys’. Despite our obvious differences we were never apart.
I remember being scared on the first day of camp. Feeling alone and abandoned. I had never been big on the outdoors, too many lies told about it I guess. I knew little to nothing about the beauty that so often surrounded me. I remember you grasping my hand, your vibrant green eyes, mirroring the hues shining down on us from the giant Oaks, shone with the same uncertainty and discomfort that must have flared from my own. You promised that we would get through this together. You smiled that brilliant smile of yours and said that that was what best friends did. Despite knowing each other only a few hours I knew you were right, you were my best friend.
I think I knew then that I loved you. I just didn’t understand it then. We spent every day we were in camp for the next two years exploring the vast forest and ranges out the outdoors, committing it all to memory.
We were never separated. Always facing each new feat, whether terrifying or not, together. I can’t help but laugh when I remember the day when we finally got fed up with the older girls at camp trying to upset us and got them back. I recall silently laughing as we snuck into their cabin at night and pulled a “Parent Trap” by covering them in various honeys and jams as well as shaving cream and feathers. I also remember rigging the water balloons to fall on them as soon as they sat up in their beds. We were a couple of mischievous twelve year olds.
That was all before camp closed down and you got sick. I remember the day we both found out about the cancer. You had gone to the doctor’s office two days prior about a pain in your chest and they were calling to give you the results. We were here, where we had first met, celebrating our nine year anniversary. We were under our Oak, sitting among its roots, your head in my lap. I was playing with you hair. I remember thinking of it as silken fire as the reds and dark oranges slipped through my fingers. Your cell phone rang and after about ten minutes of silence tears started rolling down your cheeks. I still feel you in my arms as I rocked you as you cried and told me that cancer had formed in your heart. We cried together that day.
More then anything I wished it was simply a nightmare and that I would wake with you in my arms and everything would be alright. Even now, walking around our empty and lifeless apartment, I feel and wish that it is all a dream and I will wake up and you’ll be here smiling and laughing with me. Though it is not to be. So I come here, to our untouched haven. I come here whenever I have spare time. Especially every year on this day, our anniversary. On this day I spend all my time walking through our favorite spots and paths while living long cherished memories, and sitting here listening to the whispering wind and rushing river. I walk through these trees and bushes, this angelic beauty, reliving all our firsts over again with silent tears gracing my cheeks. Reliving the life that once graced our lives.
I always begin and end my walks through the mist of memories at our Oak. Sitting with my back against sometimes it’s base and other times cradled in its roots. At these times I think of the last time I held you in my arms. The beeping and humming of the hospital machines reminding us that, although you were still with us, you were on borrowed time. We laid there in that hospital bed, my arms holding you as close to me as possible. Holding each other we simply laid there and cried as we told each other over and over again how much we loved the other.
That was the last time I saw those startling green eyes, over flowing with love and an undercurrent of pain. We fell asleep that way, holding onto each other as if nothing else in the world mattered, because then, nothing else did. It comforts my heavy soul to think that your last moments were happy, spent falling asleep in my arms like you loved.
I woke in the middle of the night to hear a high pitched keening noise and a nurse rushing in. I was crying then. Upon seeing my puffy red eyes and wet cheeks she told me that she was very sorry as she turned off the machines and left giving me a few moments with you. I held you as close to me as possible as I cried my soul out and rocked back and forth, all along whispering to you how much I loved you and how I knew you would wait for me. I was kissing your forehead and whispering goodbye as the nurse returned with the doctors.
The next week dragged by and yet it is still nothing more then a blur to me. All the funeral preparations were made and the lawyers and wills taken care of. I feel as if my soul was and still is torn asunder.
I spent the entire day before and after your funeral here in our haven, not wanting to believe that the nightmare that had consumed me was real. I have spent almost every day here since that day three years ago. Always I come back and traverse the emerald covered paths of our youth. The emerald shadows dancing with the sapphire reflection, so much like your startling green eyes and my shocking blue ones.