Wednesday I was sick. Violently ill. I left the work sight after lunch following some awful stomach pains and, yes, I'll admit it, vomiting. I spent an hour in the car trying to recuperate, thinking that I'd be OK if I could just lie down. It wasn't the case and Fr. Carl and Katie drove me back to the church we were staying in.
I had some lovely conversations with Katie that day through the bathroom door as I was too sick to stay in bed and had to get up every time my stomach needed to rebel. Eventually, I was able to settle down and fall asleep. I tossed and turned for a while as my stomach did summersaults. I've never had that kind of stomach bug before. I've had lots of stomach problems but never such a crippling 24-hour virus. I still don't know what caused it--I was the only one who got sick.
The next day, Thursday, was our field trip day. I was worried that I was going to have to miss this. But I woke up early that morning 2-3 AM, I guess, feeling a world better. It was wonderful. I wasn't tired anymore, after having slept the day away, but I stayed in bed. There were three other guys in the room (this was the first year there were enough men to get our own room!) and I didn't want to disturb them.
I woke up the next morning, and got dressed.
"How are you feeling?" from just about everyone. Fine, fine, totally better.
We hiked New River Gorge that day. A couple miles. Beautiful scenery. A couple times we stopped at lookouts and looked down at New River and the cliffs from high above on the mountain. There was one particular clearing that was breathtaking that only myself, Rick and Katie were able to find. I noticed it through some spare trees and wandered over. The three of us were in the back, so they wandered over when I did. Trying to capture such an expanse in words is a futile effort. Capturing it in a photo was a poor enough substitute. I stood on the edge of a mountain and looked at the River below and for that moment, I was overcome with calm.
After spending some time taking in the primal beauty of a land untouched by the horrors of modern life (which was hard to believe, considering how close we were to such squalor and poverty) we caught up with the rest of the group, who were settling down for lunch.
I don't know that it really was, but as far as I was concerned, this was the top of the mountain. The breeze on top of a mountain is like the breath of God Himself. A calming serenity comes with that wind. But strangely in this natural splendor, there was a cutout on the rockface, and through this narrow passage was a ladder descending downward into some kind of gorge below. When we arrived, three people had already made their way down.
Rick had no hesitation in going for it. I am somewhat scared of heights and ladders, so I had made the decision not to go. "Come on, man, when will you get the chance to do this again?" Rick asked. I shrugged and laughed. It looked scary.
As Rick readied himself to go down he turned to me and said, "You should do it. Sick one day and climbing mountains the next." Again, I simply laughed it off.
Rick went down and Katie followed, bolstered by Rick's fearlesness. She later admitted that she was initially scared, but couldn't let Rick show her up. The rest of the group that had already been there awhile had not gone down and had no plans to.
As I watched both Rick and Katie go down the ladder, what Rick said ate away at me. "Sick one day, and climbing mountains the next." That was a damn good story. I remember my inner debate being longer, but it could not have been more than a few seconds because the two were still on the ladder. I hollered down that I was on my way and descended to join them.
The climb was longer than it appeared. The ladder was only the first stop. There was a short rocky slant that led to a thin, metal bridge, connected to another, even steeper ladder. I felt my way through that slant, grabbing the rope that lined the rock wall with all the strength I could muster. I somehow managed to keep my legs from trembling, perhaps by sending that nervous energy into my grip and through the rope. I came to the end of the bridge, which was only a few feet and turned precariously. All in all this whole process took seconds, and when I set my foot onto that second ladder's first rung it was still trembling. As I took another step the fear disappeared in a single instant, as if it never existed.
I descended the ladder and reached the bottom victorious. Rick and I exchanged high fives.
Suddenly, everyone that had stayed up was coming down the ladder. We gave each new adventurer cheers and support as they screamed down about how scared they were. We were a team, suddenly, a community. That ladder brought to our week-long family a uniting force of support and camaraderie. It was a surreal moment that seemed to come from nowhere, like many things about this last trip to West Virginia. But it fit so perfectly. It made sense and brought us together. We all overcame something there in that strange, carved out descent. We explored this new area for a time, and then went back up and there I unwrapped my sandwich and breathed in the fresh air. Just yesterday I had been too sick to get out of bed. Today, I was eating lunch on top of a mountain.
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