The Saints Of Mibba
The Light In The Dark.
People are shaped inevitably by the place they call home.
My home was in a small town in Colorado, a place that I had known since the age of two. My family was there; me, my brothers, my parents, and my aunt, uncle, and cousins. The weather was good, the food was good, and the skiing was superb.
Now, one may ask what this has to do with anything.
My answer is that it has to do with me. Me, and what came to be on the evening of February twenty-fifth, two thousand and two.
We had been skiing that weekend; my cousins, Indi and Moss, and my aunt and uncle, Mary Jo and Henrik, had not joined us as they usually did. They were living currently in Sweden, but had been to Verbier, Switzerland, for a ski vacation.
It was as we were driving home. I can remember my father’s cell phone ringing. Something different about this call. It was coming to us in the middle of the night, Switzerland time. I tuned in, cutting off my music to try and detect something in my dad’s words.
Finally, he hung up. Fell silent. Changed lanes. Finally, he sighed and coughed once. “Your uncle’s been in an accident.”
An avalanche. On a back trail. Took ten minutes to dig him out. Not breathing. Mouth-to-mouth. Helicopter airlift to a hospital in the east. Things looked bleak.
And, it seemed, would just be getting worse.
My father tells me, now, that as he waited in the airport, on his way to find his sister, they called him. He tells me that he spoke to my cousin, closest to me in age, just four months younger than I. “Uncle Jim...” he’d said, “Uncle Jim...My dad’s dead.”
Home was shattered. Life was changed. Mary Jo and the boys came back to us, came back and we left them, moving on to a different home.
A home that isn’t home. A house, in a town, province, country, that isn’t home. A life that isn’t life.
What do you call someone who has lost too much to be able to search anymore? What do you call someone who hasn’t had a home for over five years? What do you call someone who doesn’t belong anywhere?
You call them desperate. Homeless. Hopeless.
You call them me.
Me, who watches the stars and knows that someone, whether it be God or Henrik or Chuck Norris, is looking back. Me, who plans a future and pushes away the past.
Me, who found Mibba.
Me, who found home.
My home was in a small town in Colorado, a place that I had known since the age of two. My family was there; me, my brothers, my parents, and my aunt, uncle, and cousins. The weather was good, the food was good, and the skiing was superb.
Now, one may ask what this has to do with anything.
My answer is that it has to do with me. Me, and what came to be on the evening of February twenty-fifth, two thousand and two.
We had been skiing that weekend; my cousins, Indi and Moss, and my aunt and uncle, Mary Jo and Henrik, had not joined us as they usually did. They were living currently in Sweden, but had been to Verbier, Switzerland, for a ski vacation.
It was as we were driving home. I can remember my father’s cell phone ringing. Something different about this call. It was coming to us in the middle of the night, Switzerland time. I tuned in, cutting off my music to try and detect something in my dad’s words.
Finally, he hung up. Fell silent. Changed lanes. Finally, he sighed and coughed once. “Your uncle’s been in an accident.”
An avalanche. On a back trail. Took ten minutes to dig him out. Not breathing. Mouth-to-mouth. Helicopter airlift to a hospital in the east. Things looked bleak.
And, it seemed, would just be getting worse.
My father tells me, now, that as he waited in the airport, on his way to find his sister, they called him. He tells me that he spoke to my cousin, closest to me in age, just four months younger than I. “Uncle Jim...” he’d said, “Uncle Jim...My dad’s dead.”
Home was shattered. Life was changed. Mary Jo and the boys came back to us, came back and we left them, moving on to a different home.
A home that isn’t home. A house, in a town, province, country, that isn’t home. A life that isn’t life.
What do you call someone who has lost too much to be able to search anymore? What do you call someone who hasn’t had a home for over five years? What do you call someone who doesn’t belong anywhere?
You call them desperate. Homeless. Hopeless.
You call them me.
Me, who watches the stars and knows that someone, whether it be God or Henrik or Chuck Norris, is looking back. Me, who plans a future and pushes away the past.
Me, who found Mibba.
Me, who found home.
♠ ♠ ♠
by princess.