Written by P.H. Fraser – I remember…  the day was idyllically bright…  early June…  flawless warmth of a fresh season waving winter a final goodbye.  We met unexpectedly in the woods beside the mountain river, running loud and fast with spring rain, winding with the road downward toward the sea.  You were dead…  but even today I find this hard to really believe.

I remember how some minute glitch of motorcycle control put your bike off the pavement, against the guardrail…  and you were gone…  a delicate missile of life…  into the woods…

I remember your husband stopping his bike… his screams for help…  his screams for you…  his screams for anything to be somehow other than how it was.

I remember.  There was nobody there but me…  climbed down over the guardrail to where you lay midst the trees near the rushing stream.   My mind heard the flowing water… saw the fresh green of spring with sunlight and blue sky.

I remember your torn body…  how I winced within my secret self.   Mostly, I live insulated from the world’s ubiquitous violence.

I remember…  you looked quite peaceful…   nestled against some roots…  face up.   I guess, if you struggled for life, your face would be pale and drained.  Your face was not pale and drained.  It was pink and healthy.

I remember how…  I found no pulse on your wrist.  Pulse can be tricky for the inexperienced, I knew that.  I must be feeling in the wrong place or gripping too tightly.  It was something too deep to truly grasp, this palpable stillness under your skin.

I remember…  I never saw you take a single breath.  It just seemed unreal to me that you were not breathing.  There must be something I had missed.

I remember doing my best at CPR.  But I was in way over my head.  You were dead.  You answered my efforts with a deep resonant gurgle…   thick and impressive…  bubbles through a jumbo straw.

I remember people gathering on the roadway above us.  They did their best to calm your distraught husband.  I heard his anguished screams amid the sound of gathering traffic chaos and car doors slamming.  Some spoke with me from over the guardrail…  I told them…  softly…  calmly…  there is no pulse…  and there is no breath…

I remember wanting to take the words back.  I was afraid you might be able to hear me.

I remember telling the people above that I needed no help…  they should care for the husband.  In some vague way, I wished for quiet and calm…  for you, here on your leafy earthen bed…  in the woods…  with the white water, beaming sun…  the infinite sky…

I remember knowing there was nothing anyone could do for you.  But somehow I wondered if that really was true.  Again I pressed my mouth to yours, offering you my own breath.  Blood erupted from your mouth.  Your lungs were full of some liquid…  blood.   Oh Man… What would I do if I really knew what I was doing…

I remember watching your lips turn blue.  Dimly, I saw you dying right there on the ground in front of me…  I…  your only connection to the life you did not wish to end…

I remember the EMS crew arriving at long last.  They seemed almost frantic in what had been our peaceful bed of death beside the flowing river.  They could do nothing.  We strapped you to a stretcher …  and we heaved you up the slope, and over the metal rail to the ambulance.  As you were hoisted inside, I gently picked up your dangling arm, and placed it over your chest.  It fell down again.  I felt poorly, not being able to help you with your arm.

I remember the taste of your blood in my mouth.

I remember people telling me I had done a magnificent job.

But I have never been so sure.

I know very well how it was easy for me.  Easy, because you were beyond agony or struggle.

And I’m sorry that…  attached to my own life, I could do no better for you.

I could not look simply and steadily upon you, as you faded away…. and I’m sorry…  I could not sit with you in full knowledge… in gentle acceptance… through this exquisitely intimate moment of life.

Our moments here are illuminated…  as by a flash of lightning…  revealed…  then gone again in a fleeting instant.

I’m sorry…  a slate gray kind of sorry…

Because I know that I blinked when the lightning flashed.

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Mr. Fraser writes when the spirit moves him, and has done so forever. He currently resides in Black Mountain, NC.