The following are some of my favorites.
My older brother, Michael - Michael is two years older than me, and I'm the second oldest. We had a pretty friendly relationship mostly, but not without its occasional fights or discord. Still, there were times it was good to have a big brother around.
When I was 12 and brand new to the 'big kid' group in our church, we got to go on a monster trip to the Zion Narrows in Utah.
The name is accurate - it's a shallow lake that runs through very narrow cliffs on either side. It's a fantastic hike...a fantastic thirteen-mile hike. No way I wasn't going! Thirteen miles? Pshaw. A snap.
I was going to hike, but my brother Michael was going to wait at the base camp for some reason; can't remember now what that reason was. Might have been his ankles. Seemed like there was always something or other physically wrong with him, but not me, boy! I was psyched.
A few hours into what started out as an easy walk, I realized that this snap of a challenge wasn't going to be so easy after all. The water gradually got deeper...and faster. Every turn in the path resulted in another turn in the path, with no end in sight. Ate all my food by about 10am, and then I hiked hungry. The rocks seemed to get more and more slippery, and it was harder to stay upright.
All my companions went on ahead of me, and I ended up walking alone at some point, which made me nervous. Was I even going the right way? I didn't know.
Eventually I found myself in a corner of one cliff, almost up to my neck in water, standing next to a river and a waterfall. It wasn't a big waterfall, but the water was running faster and I didn't know how deep it was. I could very easily be swept over this waterfall and down the river. I couldn't go back the way I came, and I couldn't go forward.
And...I couldn't swim. I hadn't learned how yet.
I hadn't signed up for this.
As I am naturally inclined to do at such moments of terror, I sent up a petition for a little heavenly assistance.
As soon as I finished praying, I saw a couple of people coming up the trail. It was my brother Michael and one of my adult leaders. Relief washed through me. Mike and I had grown up mostly adversaries, but I was never so happy to see anyone at the moment.
He went into the water with a long stick, and extended it to me and pulled me off that ledge and across to the other side of the river. He and the leader then went on looking for others stragglers, while I hiked for several more hours to get out of that place. It was dark by the time I caught up with the others
We had chili and crackers for dinner. Best meal I ever ate, to this day.
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