Recovering

You know those people who like to go on about how hard it is raise children, "It's just so hard. Oh god, you would never guess how hard it is." Don't you ever wonder if they ever did anything before they thought mattered? Of course it's damn hard. So, no big news, this past autumn when my nuclear family decided to go for a hike in New Hampshire we were not able to meet every one's needs simultaneously. My youngest had some issue that was neither met nor articulated and as a result he was impossible. I ended up turning back with him. My husband and older son followed soon after as the heavy rains of the two days before had made the trail ahead unsuitable for crossing without gear. We all went for hot cocoa and then headed for another trail.

This did not begin well. I sent the others on ahead again, but didn't turn back. I let my son follow me and pull on my bag for a bit, then suggested that I might fall, and what's more, I might fall on him. Maybe he could hold my hand. A minute later he was doing that, still behind me on the trail. We came to a tricky climb and I suggested he go ahead and I'd support him from below. He did go ahead but insisted he didn't need the help, and he didn't. He was still surly so when we came to a waterfall with a wide traverse of bald rock face on the side I was happy to suggest we climb the rock - this is what he really likes. He did his usual bit of running to the waterfall and was on the wet rock. I asked him to come back, afraid he would slip. I'm always afraid he will slip and he always insists he won't and he doesn't. Maybe because we were just getting into a nice groove he did the unusual and came over to me. On the last leap he slipped into a pool of water. The rock, well eroded, was steep and smooth all around him and as he tried to scramble up he kept slipping, falling deeper into the pool. I was worried his head would go under and then he would panic. I couldn't reach him without being on the verge of falling in, so I jumped in, reasoning I was less likely to get hurt this way. I managed to push him out, but then had trouble getting myself hoisted out. While I struggled my son, crying and shaking with cold, asked "do we have to keep going?" It was not existential. He wanted to go get warm and dry. I laughed. "No sweetie, we are going back to the car and get you dry clothes."

I had been yelling "Jack!" to alert my husband. I thought I should yell something else, but didn't want to yell "help," and unnecessarily alarm other hikers. I had just managed to extricate myself from the coldest water I have ever been in when my husband appeared, having heard a faint and unnatural noise.

I know that he inquired with some concern as to what had happened and were we ok but in my neuro cinema this bit has been digitally removed and the first thing I hear my husband say is "Your phone is in the water." I turn around and there, sure enough there is my phone, in the same pool of water I have just left. To understand the poignancy of this, two weeks earlier we had been hiking in New Hampshire. As we started to load up the car and head to the hotel I said "let me make sure my phone is still here." "Why? Where else would it be?" I didn't know, but I just had a need to have it with me in the car. I couldn't locate it in the bag though and thought maybe I'd left it in the glove compartment, when in fact, I had left it on the trail. When the details (it involved painting with pine needles) came back to me I knew exactly where I'd left it, but by then a nice thunderstorm had come upon us and I figured the phone for a loss. The trail we had been on was very busy, straight off the Kangamangus highway so I was sure the phone would be disposed of. I called the insurance company and they shipped me a new one. I activated it and headed back to New Hampshire. On the drive up I called my parents. Since my land line does not do long distance I hadn't been able to talk to them. My plan was to unpack my address book at the hotel and reenter my sister's phone number so I could call her. She is sick and I have been trying to call her regularly if only to give her a long distance hug. That plan was now sunk along with my nifty replacement phone.

The water was clear. If someone had called, and the phone had worked, I could have read the caller id no problem. But my son was shivering and still shook up so I said, "Oh well" and picked him up, more to share my body warmth with him than anything else - he's nearly eight so I'm not certain I was faster carrying him than I would have been walking with him. Jack decided to try for the phone, but was not willing to jump into four feet of water on behalf of it. When he was unable to fish it out using available materials he headed back to join us. We dried off the wet one, giving him our spare socks, sweatshirts and my jacket, which is a product of materials science and thus was dry. (We should all hug a materials scientists at least once a week.)

The whole incident shook me up more than I would have thought. My son did not want the incident mentioned, ever again! It is hard to know if this is from embarrassment or trauma. Knowing him, I suspect the former.

My only lasting trouble was my own embarrassment. I seemed incapable of calling the insurance company and telling them I had once again, and so soon, lost my phone. I thought, best case scenario, they believe me and send me a new phone but add a rider to the contract, "New phone not covered in New Hampshire." I put it off and put it off. When I had lost it the first time and had called right away to have it replaced I regularly called my voice mail box. This time I didn't. Not only that, I still didn't answer my land line - having got in that habit on the logic that everyone I want to talk to has my cell phone number. This lead to difficulty with folks I really did want, and needed to communicate with (have they not heard of email?) One day it occurred to me that my no phone life, while terrifically productive, was amiss, so I broke down and waded through the messages on my land line. Here is the gist of the relevant message:

"Hi, my name is Saint Michael (not his real name) and I have your phone. We found it in Maine. You can call me at this number and describe it and I'll get it back to you." It was about two days old.

Maine? I called. I hoped he hadn't given up on me and tossed the thing. I figured it was the first phone, maybe it had been picked up and brought to Maine before it was deactivated. I called him, but he was, of course, at work, so I left a message. I called back around five, too early, but when he got home he called me.

He had found it in New Hampshire, actually, while hiking with his family. It was there in the water, which had gone down a bit, but not gotten any warmer. He fished it out, brought it to a Verizon store, bought a charger for it, charged it up, looked up my home number on the phone and called me. I was flabbergasted. "I'll pay you for the charger, of course," was all I could say, which was horrible. He said, "actually, my company is having an auction to raise money for AIDS Education so if you just write the check out for that, that would be great." He worked downtown in the financial district so I wore a skirt and boots to bike down there. I didn't want to show up in his building looking like my slovenly self. More than one person was appalled to see someone other than a bike messenger getting off a cycle amid the towers. Undaunted by rude stares outside the building I signed in and went up to the company's lobby. The receptionist knew who I was the moment I came in the door. Guess I wore the wrong skirt, or boots.


She wanted the whole story about the phone and I gave her my version of it and wrote out a check. As I wrote she said, "He's here. Do you want to meet him?" He had told me on the phone that he wouldn't be in the office that day, so I said I didn't want to bother him. When I handed over the check, she said, "it was only supposed to be $36." I had written it for $100. The man had fished into cold water, he bought a charger, he called me and he called me back! And the money was for a good cause. No biggie, right? I didn't have to pay the $50 to the insurance company, I was getting a new charger and I didn't have to tell the insurance company that I had lost my phone, again.

The receptionist called out a woman I can only guess is the director of PR and community relations. She was running the auction. They were both very nice and I finally asked what the company did, having never heard of SAPPI. Specialty papers, those used in magazines I don't read, Elle and Vogue. The paper in those gorgeous coffee table photo books , like Desert Water, a copy of which, along with the humongous fall issues the fashion magazines, she gave me. I had no messenger bag, only my canvas "purse" to carry home my phone and spanking new charger. She gave me a beautiful bag, undoubtedly made of SAPPI paper, with thick, soft string handles. I rode home with all of this hanging from my road bike's handle bars. Maybe SAPPI hires very nice people. Maybe we all just need more chances to help each other out. I don't know, but I have my phone, bought it a new battery and think good thoughts about human beings every time it rings.

The man who found and fished out my phone has a son, "I hope you don't mind he made a few calls on it," he said when we spoke. I'm just glad there are parents out there setting that kind of example. Next time I'm struggling n the trail, maybe I'll yell "help." Give someone a chance to act on their better nature.