The Cheslatta River Race

Chicken Soup for the Soul: Thanks Dad

BY: James S. Fell

Don't wait to make your son a great man -- make him a great boy.
~Author Unknown


There is something about shared pain that can bring two people closer together. In this case the two people were my dad and me, and the pain was a canoe race.

My parents split up when I was young. I ended up moving to the city with my mom and my sister, so I didn't get to see my dad nearly as often as I would have liked. Summer was great because my sister and I spent several weeks visiting him out in the middle of nowhere in central British Columbia where we would go fishing, horseback riding, hiking, camping and canoeing. The quantity of time we spent together may have been low, but the quality was always high.


Sometimes I question if the river race was one of those high-quality moments. My arms hurt just thinking about it.

I was fifteen and not an athlete, so actually using my muscles to engage in competition was a new experience. My dad and I had spent many an hour in the canoe, but not in fast-flowing water and never in a hurry. Entering the Cheslatta River Race was my idea, and an impromptu affair that was more of an excuse for a bunch of people to have a party than a real competition. The event was mostly populated by people in tubes and rafts, only some of whom bothered to use paddles. My dad and I, however, opted to be one of the four teams who wanted to go fast.

I sized up the other canoe racers. There was little doubt that first would be taken by the two men with the high-tech canoe that looked fast just sitting there on the beach. I was also certain that second belonged to my dad's German friends, Klaus and Dieter, who were big, strong forestry workers. Granted, their boat looked to be older than dirt, and held together with duct tape, but I figured their logging-sculpted muscles could power a Buick down the river at a good pace.

The last of our competitors was another father-son team, and we seemed to be evenly matched in physical size and quality of watercraft.

"Looks like we're battling for third," Dad gave voice to my thoughts.

Soon after, the race got underway and I blew it.

I'm not sure what I did wrong, but my coordinative abilities reverted to that of a six-week-old puppy. We launched ourselves toward the first turn and I nearly capsized us. The canoe dipped perilously close to the waterline and we ended up with eight inches of water in the bottom of our boat.

"Beach it!" my dad called out from the rear. "Starboard side!"

We ran the canoe aground and leapt out to dump the water. "Sorry, Dad," I said as we climbed back in. The other teams were all rapidly disappearing from view down the river.

"Don't sweat it. We'll catch them."

I wasn't feeling so optimistic, but I dug in with all my strength in the hopes that we wouldn't be the last ones across the finish line. Fortunately, we had a long straight stretch after our near swim, and I was able to get a feel for how to handle the canoe in rough water before we came to the next turn. My dad called out instructions and encouragement from the rear. "Hard right! That's it, dig in! We're gaining on them."

And we were. The other father-son team looked a lot closer.

The dwindling gap and my dad's exhortations motivated me to paddle harder. My shoulders ached already, but after a while they went numb and operated more on autopilot. About halfway into the race, we caught up to third place, coming around a sharp turn where I almost blew it again.

I was anxious to pass these guys, but my dad stopped me before I could cause another catastrophe. "Hang back," he said. "We'll pass them in the straight stretch."
And so we did.
They didn't let us pass without a fight, but my dad and I poured on the gas and we took over third place. I was determined to not lose it; we'd fought hard to make it that far and I had the sense that my arms could last the rest of the race. There was no question in my mind that my dad's would.

I was happy.

Then I saw Klaus and Dieter not far beyond, and I felt another competitive surge of adrenaline. "Let's catch them."

My dad laughed in that way of his that couldn't help but shake the canoe. "I'm game if you are."

Klaus and Dieter may have been tough as nails, but so is my dad. It was a brutal battle of screaming shoulders and creaking vertebrae. We paddled hard to catch them, but when they saw us pull up alongside, their pride would not let us beat them. They had looks of hard determination, refusing to lose to a team that included a teenage city boy. For a few seconds we inched ahead and were in second place, but they renewed their efforts and matched us again.

We hit shore simultaneously to a cheering crowd, and the final torture began. To complete the race we had to carry the canoe over 200 feet off beach and cross the finish line. I jumped out, grabbed the front handle and started to run, but my dad knew better. We may have been able to match them in the water because of our better boat, but he realized we didn't have a hope against them carrying it across land. "It's okay," he said. "We got third. We gave them a good run."

Klaus and Dieter had taken off like two kids who had just heard the school bell ring on a Friday afternoon, and I could see that he was right. Still, I felt victorious because I never knew we could make it so close.

We jogged across the finish line and my dad and I shared a bear hug. Then he gave me a mischievous grin and said, "That was fun."

And he was right. It was fun.

An hour later I was feeling sore and exhausted and working my way through my third hot dog when my dad came up to me. "You've got a big glob of mustard on your face," he said.

I was about to tell him that I was too tired to care, when his eyes flicked off to my left. I took the hint and looked to see Mariah, my teenage crush, walking toward us.

Unlike a mother who would have grabbed my chin and meticulously cleaned my face with a spit-moistened tissue, my dad was discreet. He cupped a handkerchief, did a quick wipe of the mustard then turned the movement into a shoulder clasp.

He spun me toward Mariah, still gripping my aching shoulder, and said, "This boy paddled his heart out today." Then he walked away.

Mariah gave me a smile. "I saw you finish. You almost beat Klaus and Dieter."

I could have said many different things at that point, or I could have suffered from a tongue-tied teenager attack, but I opted to give credit where it was due.

"My dad did most of the work."

http://www.beliefnet.com/Inspiration/Chicken-Soup-For-The-Soul/2010/08/The-Cheslatta-River-Race.aspx?source=NEWSLETTER&nlsource=49&ppc=&utm_campaign=DIBSoup&utm_source=NL&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_term=mail.ru

A French Cat

Chicken Soup for the Soul: Loving Our Cats

It is impossible for a lover of cats to banish these alert, gentle, and discriminating little friends, who give us just enough of their regard and complaisance to make us hunger for more.
~Agnes Repplier


Recently, my husband Gene and I traveled throughout Europe. We rented a car as we always do and drove along the back roads, staying in quaint, out-of-the-way inns. The only thing that distracted me from the wonder of the trip was the terrible longing I felt for our cat Perry. I always miss him when we travel, but this time, because we were gone for more than three weeks, my need to touch his soft fur and to hold him close became more and more intense. With every cat we saw, the feeling deepened.

We were high in the mountains of France one morning, packing the car before resuming our trip, when an elderly couple walked up to the car parked next to ours. The woman was holding a large Siamese cat and speaking to him in French.

I stood watching them, unable to turn away. My yearning for Perry must have been written all over my face. The woman glanced at me, turned to speak to her husband and then spoke to her cat. Suddenly she walked right over to me and, without one word, held out her cat.

I immediately opened my arms to him. Cautious about the stranger holding him, he extended his claws, but only for a few seconds. Then he retracted them, settled into my embrace and began to purr. I buried my face in his soft fur while rocking him gently. Then, still wordless, I returned him to the woman.

I smiled at them in thanks, and tears filled my eyes. The woman had sensed my need to hold her cat, the cat had sensed that he could trust me, and both, in one of the greatest gifts of kindness I have ever received, had acted upon their feelings.

It's comforting to know the language of cat lovers -- and cats -- is the same the world over.

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The Lunch Hour

Chicken Soup for the Soul: Count Your Blessings

BY: Michelle Mach

Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so.
~Douglas Adams


I clutched a yogurt in one hand as I tried to eat and catch up on customer e-mail during the noon hour. Even fifteen minutes in the employee lunchroom seemed too much of a luxury. My company, like many companies, had cut costs by not replacing people as they left. The survivors were expected to take up the slack.

For me, this meant no lunch hour, plus taking work home in the evening or on the weekends. I didn't feel I worked at a job; I felt I was my job. I wanted to quit, but given the economy, I felt I couldn't until I had another job in hand. Nice in theory, but given how cranky all the extra hours made me feel, it was difficult to convince potential employers to hire me. I felt trapped. Then a chance conversation with a stranger's six-year-old daughter changed my outlook. The young girl was positively bouncy, standing in line with her mom at the grocery store.

"Good day at school?" I asked.

A nod.

"What's your favorite subject?"

"Lunch."

I smiled at the answer. I remembered when that had been my answer. At lunch, there were no adults to tell you what to do and when to do it. You could sit and talk with your friends or play an exuberant game of four-square. You could draw pictures or swing on the monkey bars. The time was yours to do whatever you wanted. Sometimes we planned our time, bringing stickers to trade or Chinese jacks for a weeklong tournament. Sometimes we were more spontaneous, only deciding what to do while we were eating our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and slurping our little paper cartons of milk.

That brief encounter left me wondering: What had happened to lunch?

I knew that by law I was entitled to a lunch break at work. So I decided to simply start taking it. The office was located in the downtown area of a small town and I set out to explore it. A few blocks away was a local art museum with free admission. At the end of another street, I was startled to discover some horses grazing in a field. A cute gift boutique made for pleasant and sometimes humorous browsing, particularly looking through the leftover holiday items and laughing at the sometimes funny things, like jack-o'-lantern sunglasses and temporary Santa tattoos that no one had the foresight to buy.

When the weather turned cold, I visited the used bookstore or public library. Near the library was a small man-made pond that attracted ducks and small children with their parents, all of whom provided much amusement as they demanded to be fed. Even running errands at lunch to the bank or the post office brought me a small measure of joy. Doing those errands during the week freed up some time on the weekends for fun activities.

When I decided to take back my lunch hour, I braced myself for catty remarks or stares from my co-workers, but they never materialized. In fact, I watched in amazement as some of my co-workers started to drift away occasionally from their own desks during lunch. We started inviting each other out for walks during good weather and discovered that we had other topics of conversation beyond the now common complaints about work.

I'm still looking for a new position, but with less stressed-out urgency than before. You can't always change your circumstances, but you can always change your perspective.

http://www.beliefnet.com/Inspiration/Chicken-Soup-For-The-Soul/2010/08/The-Lunch-Hour.aspx?source=NEWSLETTER&nlsource=49&ppc=&utm_campaign=DIBSoup&utm_source=NL&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_term=mail.ru

Seven Sticks

Chicken Soup for the Soul: Thanks Mom

BY: Sandy M. Smith

A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie.
~Tenneva Jordan


Well, here it was... one of the most exciting days of my youth, my very first trip to college! Twelve years of school had led to this very important day. I am not sure who was more excited, my mother or me. Just being able to attend college was a miracle in itself since Daddy had passed away three years earlier.

I always knew that funds were scarce after he died. But Momma was somehow able to provide for us. I thought I had understood the extent of her sacrifice, but it was on this day, driving in the car with my mother to college, that I learned one of my life's most important lessons.

As we drove, she offered no profound advice -- not about safety or financial responsibility or anything else of any importance. There really was no need for such conversations on this road trip because these talks had happened long before. Instead, the lesson came in the form of a few words spoken as we listened to songs on the radio.
My mother said, "San, do you have any gum?"

My mother never, ever chewed gum. Since I was the one driving the car, I told her to help herself to the gum in my purse. My surprise continued when Momma pulled the gum from my purse and said, "Oh, honey, this is my favorite gum. Even when I was a child, I always loved this gum."

Okay, now I was really, really shocked. Not only did she chew gum, but she actually had a favorite gum? How was it possible that this precious woman who raised me enjoyed such a simple pleasure in life, yet I never knew? As I watched my mother take the gum from the silver foil and begin to chew, I decided that I had to know the scoop about the gum.

"Momma, I have to ask, how did I not know that you chewed gum?"

Before giving her a chance to answer, I went on to reflect on what I remembered as a child. Whenever we went anywhere as a family, we would pile in Daddy's truck, Momma and Daddy in the front and all six of us in the back. Like a tradition engraved in stone, Daddy would always stop and get three Cokes in the bottle, one to share with Momma, one for the three girls, and one for my three brothers. In addition to the Cokes, Daddy always bought a pack of gum, and it was the very flavor that my mother had just taken from my purse.
After I finished rambling on, my mother just smiled and said: "Honey, the pack only had seven sticks."

It was at that exact moment that I realized my precious Momma had made a choice all those times years ago. She'd given each of us children a stick and then one to Daddy -- seven sticks gone and the pack empty, leaving none for her.

To some, this may not seem like a large sacrifice for a loved one to make. But my realization that she spent years giving up even the smallest of pleasures forever changed my heart. I realized that day that, although my mother made huge sacrifices for us, that she also made a million small ones that went unnoticed.

People say being in the right place at the right time is the secret to success. All I know is that a single stick of gum opened a world of knowledge about someone I had known and loved all my life, and about the unspoken sacrifices she had made over the years.

To this day, I am very thankful for the college education I received those many years ago. But it is my momma who taught me lessons of the heart.

By the way, every year since that time, I always nestle a pack of that flavored gum in the bow adorning her Christmas gift.

http://www.beliefnet.com/Inspiration/Chicken-Soup-For-The-Soul/2010/08/Seven-Sticks.aspx?source=NEWSLETTER&nlsource=49&ppc=&utm_campaign=DIBSoup&utm_source=NL&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_term=mail.ru

Okay, Fine, My Father Was Right

Chicken Soup for the Soul: Thanks Dad

BY: John Lavitt

When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.
~Mark Twain

For most of my life I refused to admit that I was wrong, especially when it came to advice given to me by my father. I now see, with naked clarity, how right and caring and sensible my father's cornerstone advice has been from the very beginning.

Perhaps the most consistently contentious issue between fathers and sons is the question of work and how to be successful in the real world. Right from the get-go, I thought I should start at the top. I was a talented young man and I thought everyone around me should realize this. With an air of entitlement and a growing grandiosity, I did not believe that I should have to pay my dues like other people. As a result, I constantly tried to find a short cut to the big time.

The baseball metaphor my father always used was that I was trying to hit a home run rather than focusing my efforts on getting to first base. In fact, I expected to hit a game-winning grand slam in my first major league at bat, resulting in immediate enshrinement in the Hall of Fame. As most of us have come to learn through the lens of life experience, such ridiculous expectations lead directly to strikeouts and dead ends, failures that take place without the honesty of a nuts and bolts beginning. But my father and I came from very different backgrounds, and that is the genesis of our conflicting outlooks on life.

My father is a prototypical example of the American dream come to life, a self-made man who achieved success through hard work. In Denver, Colorado, he grew up in a middle-class family that often experienced a roller coaster ride of economic ups and downs. Focusing on the promise of college, Dad won a scholarship to Brown University. Digging into his studies while forming a close-knit group of friends, he thrived at Brown.

Upon graduation, my dad married my beautiful mother at the Plaza Hotel in New York City and obtained an entry-level position at a Wall Street brokerage house. As the years passed and children were born, Dad worked with an unswerving determination, becoming a respected partner of the firm and the head of the sales team. He worked hard, but was also innovative, and eventually became a renowned expert in raising capital when others failed.

His most famous effort was captured in the book, Behind Closed Doors: Wheeling and Dealing in the Banking World, by Hope Lampert. Dad is a central character in a chapter on the challenge of raising money for the initial public offering of the computer company Compaq. Nobody thought anyone could go up against IBM at the time. But after interviewing the founders of Compaq, Dad found an angle to use to sell the company to the investors. By 1992, Compaq was the biggest supplier of personal computers in the world.

In contrast to my father's hard-earned success, I grew up as a privileged Upper East Side New Yorker who expected everything to be handed to him on the proverbial silver platter. Like my father and both of my sisters, I went to Brown where I majored in literary theory, and partied until the wee hours of the morning. After college, I headed out to Los Angeles where I fed into the dream of selling a big screenplay. Although my partying became habitual and out of control, I always thought the next big script sale would change everything. If only I could hit the legendary game-winning grand slam home run, life would fall into place and the prison cycle of addiction would end.

Seeing my attitude firsthand, my father told me that there were no short cuts, and that everyone had to pay their dues. I never listened, always trying to convince him and myself that the next big thing was waiting just around the bend. Eventually, I lost my house and my marriage and wound up at a drug rehab facility. Never listening to the sound advice of my father and insisting on following my own path toward self-destruction, I ended up in a terrible place.

My father, however, never gave up on me and has been remarkably supportive throughout my sobriety. When I helped start a nonprofit investment company, my father accepted a place on the company's board and did everything he could to help us get off the ground. Since I had never worked in the past, I made a lot of mistakes. But with the faith of my family and the support of my father, I have been able to pay my dues and help get my career as a technical writer and a website optimizer off the ground. Unlike some old friends, I have not won an Academy Award or produced hundred-million-dollar films, but I have discovered my own sense of personal dignity and integrity.

What remains so amazing is that so many of the lessons I have learned have come directly from my father. Listening to him, I have come to realize that none of my successful friends were ever given a golden ticket to Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. Rather, all of them, whether they were lucky or incredibly gifted or both, paid their dues and worked hard to achieve their success. Like my father tried to teach me from day one, there are no shortcuts. No matter how talented or fortunate you may be, success is the product of sweat in the form of hard work -- showing up each day and doing your job to the best of your abilities.

This may sound like a bunch of awful clichés from a self-help manual. But each of these so-called clichés has been proven to work in the real world. My father still works hard, even after all of his success. Every weekday, at an age when many of his contemporaries have retired, my father wakes up early in the morning and sits down at the computer to see how the market is doing before launching into hours of networking and conference calls. I have such gratitude that my father has stuck by my side and believed in me even when I was unable to believe in myself. Learning from his example, I have finally embraced the challenges of being an adult. Without my father's consistent love and support, this might never have been possible.

http://www.beliefnet.com/Inspiration/Chicken-Soup-For-The-Soul/2010/07/Okay-Fine-My-Father-Was-Right.aspx?source=NEWSLETTER&nlsource=49&ppc=&utm_campaign=DIBSoup&utm_source=NL&utm_medium=newsletter

A Father's Persistence

The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one comes from a strong will,
and the other from a strong won't.
~Henry Ward Beecher


Whenever I was distraught as a teenager, my father, like most parents, shared in my pain. Nothing, however, could compare to his agony when my life was dramatically changed forever.

I was at the wrong place at the wrong time, an innocent bystander at an armed robbery. I was shot in the head execution style by one of the thieves. Very few people thought I would survive, much less be a productive member of society. In the hospital waiting room, my father believed that I might die and his thoughts were of the past. What could he have done differently? Could he have spent more time with his son?

My parents met with the neurosurgeon in the morning, who told them that he was surprised I had made it through the night. Now that I had, he needed to operate. He then proceeded to say that there was only a 40% chance of my surviving the surgery, and if I did survive, almost a 100% chance of my living in a nursing home, not being able to walk or communicate.

My father was devastated. The surgeon was talking about his second son, a young man. An honor student at the University of Texas. He wondered when this nightmare would end. My mother refused to listen to the pessimism. She told my father, "We need to rent a storage space to keep Mike's furniture until he returns to U.T."

But my father, still stunned, replied, and reminded her of the grim prognosis. "Toby, did you hear the neurosurgeon? Mike will be lucky if he spends the rest of his days in a nursing home."

My mother quickly and angrily barked back, "That doctor does not know my son, my Michael."

My father did not want to argue, especially not at such a delicate time. They rented a storage space in Austin. My father never believed the space would be opened again. But I beat the neurosurgeon's odds and survived the surgery. I was in a coma and with each day that I showed no progress, my father agonized even more.

Then, miraculously, I woke up. I was completely paralyzed on my right side, could not speak, and was hallucinating. When the doctor informed my parents that I was stable enough to fly home to a rehabilitation hospital in Houston, my father finally had reason to hope. My rehabilitation in Houston was steady, but also (especially for my father) very, very slow. He was not a very patient man. He became extremely frustrated when he could not understand what I wanted. When my mother had no problems understanding me, my father's frustration grew even more.

Then, seven weeks after being hurt, I began to utter some words. My father thought this was the perfect time for him to work with me. At first he would drill me on simple things, such as pointing to a 1, then a 2, then a 3. He was so happy when I accomplished each goal, only to be devastated the next time when I was unable to repeat the task.

As time progressed, I continued to improve. My verbal skills grew steadily each day, and after my father's busy day at work, he would come to the hospital, ready to work with me. I still remember his bag filled with flash cards. He drilled me on math and spelling. He stretched my limp leg. Anything and everything that might help.

The hospital staff worried that he was working me too hard, that I would grow frustrated working with them all day, and with my father all evening. None of that mattered to my father. He knew what was best for his son and no one would be able to persuade him otherwise. Very few of the medical staff at either hospital believed that I would ever be able to return to college. But that is exactly what I did almost a year and a half after the shooting. I could not have made this recovery without my father. He always encouraged me to look for the positive, even when there was very little to feel positive about. He held me up mentally and physically, pushing me as hard as he could and believing that I would have my life back.

Four years after returning to school, I graduated at the top of my class with many honors, including Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude. I was one of twelve students named as a Dean's Distinguished Graduate.

As I limped up to the stage to get my diploma from the Dean, I received a standing ovation. One of the many thoughts racing through my head was of my father -- the man who helped me throughout my ordeal. The man who has always been there for me, no matter what, and who believed I would one day reclaim my life. Even though I could not see his face in the huge auditorium, I knew he was smiling at me. I will always love him.

http://www.beliefnet.com/Inspiration/Chicken-Soup-For-The-Soul/2010/08/A-Fathers-Persistence.aspx?source=NEWSLETTER&nlsource=49&ppc=&utm_campaign=DIBSoup&utm_source=NL&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_term=mail.ru

Summer Son

Chicken Soup for the Soul: Moms & Sons

BY: Jennifer Olsson

While some kids have bar mitzvahs and others have confirmations to commemorate the beginning of their transition into adulthood, my son Peter -- twelve years old, tall for his age with size ten feet, short curly hair and round, wire-rimmed glasses -- had a sea kayak trip. It was the first time either of us had ever taken a major outdoor adventure together. His goal was to paddle by himself in a solo kayak; mine was to let him.

Peter is my only child. His father and I have been divorced since he was five -- we did not part well. He lives a hundred miles away from us and sees Peter when he can. I wish I could have given my son the mother and father combination I always wanted for him, but it didn't work out that way. After my divorce, I felt that I had failed as a person and as a mom. When Peter's kindergarten teacher called me in and suggested I get my son some counseling, I felt that my failure at life had been passed on to him.

As I worked at shoring up the walls that had fallen around us, he tested their strength by trying to push them down. It took time for Peter to regain a sense of security. It took time for him to rebuild trust in me -- and for me to rebuild trust in myself. Slowly, I learned to believe that I had made good choices in life as a person and as a parent, and that not all partings are abandonments -- indeed, some are necessary and should be celebrated.

Still, learning to let go is hard, especially when you're raising a boy who's about to become a young man. Just when I thought I was getting the hang of being Peter's mom, I realized there was one more step I had to make.

Three days into our adventure, we slowly awakened inside our bright yellow tent on the small island of Tannøy in a fjord of the Norwegian Sea. However, it wasn't the morning light that had triggered the end of my sleep; the sun is up all night during the summer in this land above the Arctic Circle in northern Norway, and I had grown accustomed to its insistent shine. Rather, it was the smell of boy -- campfire smoke in his hair, spicy mosquito repellent on his skin, dried sweaty socks on top of the clothes he had shed the night before.

Our breath had condensed while we slept, forming droplets smaller than tears that clung to the inside of the tent. They released and dropped like rain as I struggled to pull on my shirt and pants.

Peter suddenly sat up. The sun was finally above the mountains that had shadowed us to the east. It was unbearably warm. We needed more air. Both of us reached for the tent zipper at the same time.

"I'll do it, Mom."
The zipper stuck, and my reflex was to offer a suggestion, reach out to help, take command of the whole zipper situation until it was fixed. I caught myself and pulled back. I opened my mouth, then shut it. A moment later, Peter successfully dislodged the zipper, and we both crawled out into the fresh morning air.

We were accompanied by the trip leaders, Tim and Lena, and seven other participants. Everyone got along and shared a mutual appreciation for the dramatic pristine land and seascape. As we paddled, we often paused to take in the towering mountains of the coastal range, their chartreuse-green grassy backs sloping down to the narrow rocky beaches along the shoreline. The unusually windless conditions had made for a smooth passage over the blue-green sea.

From the start, Tim had taken Peter in his double kayak, but on this, the third day of our trip, Tim announced, "Pete, today you solo. Get yourself ready. Take the yellow kayak."

Peter moved quickly, donning the rubbery blue kayak skirt and cinching up the life jacket. I came forward and watched silently. Before he stepped into the kayak, he looked over and asked, "Can you hold these for me?"

His sweaty hands dropped a collection of white shells, worn black rocks and a long brown feather from a sea eagle into mine. I cradled these treasures of his in my hands.

This first attempt at paddling by himself would be an hour trip around the island we had camped on. He was joined by Tim and two other men from the group. After they returned, we would all paddle over to the next night's stop at the Tranøy lighthouse.

Tim pushed Peter's kayak off its sandy perch. With careful even strokes, Peter backed, turned, pointed the kayak toward the sea, then waited for the others. He slyly peered out from under a wide-brimmed canvas hat.

Everything looked big on him -- the sleeves on his jacket were bunched at the cuffs, the thick orange life jacket hugged him front and back. And the way he sat made him look short. I wanted to say, "Be careful. Keep up with the others," but after everything that we had been through over the last few years, I had to show that I could believe in and trust him.

I smiled.

He smiled back.

Soon a flurry of white-tipped paddles rose and fell like a flock of seagulls. The men and the boy moved together out of the protective bay. I waved and waved. Peter didn't look back. I was afraid he would disappear from me without a goodbye.

The kayaks reached the open water and turned to the right.
I kept waving. Nothing.

Then the hat on the duckling-colored boat turned toward shore. Suddenly, Peter lifted his paddle overhead and pumped it up and down victoriously. Two strokes later, he slipped out of sight.

At my feet the sea gently rolled in and out. I was alone on a beach near the top of the world, holding the sharp shells, smooth stones and a feather left behind by a bird that had taken flight -- finally able to smile back on the pain and the courage of a little boy and his mother who had lived on a different shore, in another time... long ago.

http://www.beliefnet.com/Inspiration/Chicken-Soup-For-The-Soul/2010/07/Summer-Son.aspx?source=NEWSLETTER&nlsource=49&ppc=&utm_campaign=DIBSoup&utm_source=NL&utm_medium=newsletter