Waiting In The Myst

It's all a mystery...the whole damn thing. I took this picture
in 1988 on Mt. Katahdin in Maine. It was one of the best days of
my life, ascending the remote peak in the austere extremes of winter,
along with my brother and five other friends. On this particular day
a handful of us ascended a steep trail to the summit ridge that
spans Pamola Peak with Katahdin's main summit, called The Knife Edge.
If I could only have known then that it would be the way I best remember
my brother, now that nearly a year has passed since losing him.

The sun hanged sharply, low to the horizon in the north. A strong breeze
blew from the south, blasting a haze of snow particles up into our faces,
then angling over our heads into the deep blue sky. We walked literally on
the edge of a vertical horizon between clear blue sky on our right, and
sparkling shroud of myst and snow to our left.

Jeff walked up ahead of me as we neared the sharpest section of the knife
edge. He looked back at me with this confident grin on his face, the way he
often did, as if to signal our common bond and brotherhood. I couldn't let
this moment go, and snapped a shot with the instant camera stashed in my
front pocket. It captured the moment, and the meaning of that day,
perfectly.

A few minutes later, five of us stood on the two-foot wide knife edge,
looking down into the abyss in front of us. Peering south, into the blush
and nothingness of glistening snow particles, we could see our long shadows,
cast into the haze by the bright sun behind us. I suddenly became aware of a
circular rainbow around my shadow, but could not see it around the shadows
of the others. Each of us had his own individual rainbow, fading like a
ghost into the swirling myst of snow and haze. I later came to understand
this phenomena as a brochen spectre. It made us laugh like children. We
waved our arms and jumped up and down.

The rainbow revealed to me the mystery of life within each of us. I stood at
once jubilant and silent, marveling at the wonder of experience, impressed
by nothing but my own infinitesimal insignificance to the cold, indifferent
sky. The rainbow we individually witnessed signified the Grace of existence
itself, the uniqueness of our personal journey, and of the mystery that will be revealed to us at the end of our journey.

Often, when I think of my brother, I remember this day. I gaze back into the
photograph, and imagine him somewhere up in the heavens, waiting, shrouded in a similar myst of rapture and beauty. When I see him again perhaps he'll be waiting for me again, smiling, as he did when I snapped this picture. Then, he'll step beside me on the knife edge, look down with me into the abyss of glistening snow, place his hand on my shoulder, and reveal to me the wonders of the mystery.