Love you, Bye

On Monday we rolled out of bed and headed to Cracker Barrel for a last supper... or... a last breakfast. The boys piled into the mini van with their fort-some pound packs and we filled our bellies with pancakes and hit the road.

I hadn't adequately psyched myself up for this.

A month. No Caleb.

I was quiet on the ride to Tennessee, thoughts of what being without him would be like.

No emails. No phone calls at the end of the night.

The day before we had locked up the dorm building for the last time.

We had bought bungee cords and I had bought his last Chipotle for a month.

On Monday, after four hours in the car, we signed papers at Pickett State Park and drove to the trailhead.

We took pictures and laughed over the roaring noise of the seventeen-year cecadas in the trees above our heads.

And we shouldered our packs... and started hiking.

The next day, after rain and injury and getting lost and freezing during the night, we shouldered our packs again and set off on the trail.

This time... we would go two separate ways.

Liza and I would head back to the van.

The boys would head north on the Sheltowee Trace.

And so we stopped where the paths diverged. "What is it that Caleb always says before he leaves?" Liza asked. I laughed. "Loveyou,bye. Real fast like that," I told her.

I felt my eyes filling up with tears. And so I kissed Caleb on the cheek. Told the boys to be careful. Told Paul I'd come get them tomorrow if they needed me to...

Grabbed Caleb's hand and then turned toward my trail.

"Love you, bye!" I yelled real fast.

And we walked ahead.

I'll see him again in a few weeks.

I didn't adequately psyche myself up for this.