Chapter 37

   John woke up with a clear head and a newly defined sense of purpose. He felt proud of himself for resisting the drink last night, and decided that morning that he wanted to take a detour. He wanted to see his mother. To see his old house and his old school and the river where he used to sit and dream about a life that was bigger and better than his own. He wanted to go to his first home.

     He crossed over into the state of Washington later that morning, stopping briefly at the mouth of the Colombia River Gorge to take it all in. It was a place that was important to him in another incarnation, and he felt like the stop might help him to continue to regain clarity. It was a windy day and he felt a chill in the air as he walked down to the river to take it all in.

     John had decided to purchase his grandparent’s farm as a way of reconnecting with a happier time in his own life, and being back in Washington reminded him of this original instinct. The whole idea was based on sharing this piece of his past with his wife and daughter, and for a wonderful and fleeting time, his wish had come true. They had found the rarest of things. A happy ending. While it lasted, a happy ending. He wondered if we only got to experience this for a few fleeing moments. It was certainly true for him. Yet somehow he felt his story had more chapters, however dark they might become.

     He called his mother and let him know roughly when he would be home. Despite everything, he wanted to be a good son. He realized that whatever emotional crisis he was in, there were a lot of other people in the world that cared about his well being. It was something he had forgotten during his long trip across the country, and his mother had not-so-gently reminded him.

     There was a certain kind of selfishness in grief that is a hard thing to quantify. People want desperately to share their condolences, say the right thing, make you feel better, but for those truly in mourning these things are of very little use. This kind  of sorrow was a solitary road to follow, and he knew that when he did return to his work as a therapist, it would be with a deeper understanding of this idea.

      As he continued to take in the river, he found himself thinking of a book that had sustained him in his youth, and in particular a scene where one of the characters described a longing to come back to the very place where he was standing on the Colombia River Gorge. It was One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and he found himself flipping through a pdf online to read it word for word, although he remembered most of it from memory. 

‘I might go to Canada eventually, but I think I’ll stop along the Columbia on the way. I’d like to check around Portland and Hood River and The Dalles to see if there’s any of the guys I used to know back in the village who haven’t drunk themselves goofy. I’d like to see what they’ve been doing since the government tried to buy their right to be Indians. I’ve even heard that some of the tribe have took to building their old ramshackle wood scaffolding all over that big million-dollar hydroelectric dam, and are spearing salmon in the spillway. I’d give something to see that. Mostly, I’d just like to look over the country around the gorge again, just to bring some of it clear in my mind again.

I been away a long time. ‘

So had John. Been away a long time. Not so much in years, but in emotional loss.

He started the car and headed east.