As the son made his way through the path of pink and white mountain laurel, two decades of images flashed through the father’s head as he literally watched his boy walk into manhood. As the son disappeared around a bend, the father turned and rubbed his eyes as he walked back to his car.
“I swore I wasn’t going to do this,” he said, his voice cracking as the first tears glinted in the morning sun.
He knew he would, though. The convergence of emotions were like the colliding weather fronts that can turn mountain sunshine into monsoons in minutes. He hadn’t seen his son in weeks before the young adventurer took a couple days off from his Appalachian assault to hang out with his dad in Gatlinburg, Tenn. And now, as the son resumed his trek, the father wasn’t sure when he’d see his son again.
But something else, something stronger and more certain than gravity, pulled at the father’s heart. He knew he’d see his son again in a matter of weeks, but he’d seen the last of his boy. Though the son had shed more than 10 pounds on the trail already, the experience already was turning the boy into a man.
This was two years ago as Mike, one of my closest lifelong friends, watched his son Kyle tackle the adventure of a lifetime. Mike had invited me to hang out with him and Kyle in Gatlinburg, and I eagerly accepted. I replayed the mountain scene in my mind this week when another friend e-mailed me with the news.
Kyle, who was attending Bluegrass Community Technical College in Lexington, Ken., had been walking from an area in Lexington where college students regularly hang out to one dominated by apartments, including his own. Train tracks divided the two areas.
Somehow, this young man who’d safely navigated hundreds of miles of backwoods trail ended up prone on the tracks. At just after 4 a.m. on Sept. 2, as a Norfolk Southern train approached Burley Avenue, the conductor spotted Kyle laying on the tracks. She hit the brakes, but it wasn’t enough.
Kyle was pronounced dead at 5:20 a.m. No one knows for sure why Kyle ended up on the tracks, although authorities believe it wasn’t a suicide. Toxicology reports are pending, and could help explain what might have happened.
Mike told me that while he wanted to know what happened, in the end, it doesn’t really matter. Kyle is gone, and nothing can change that.
“You know what he meant to me,” Mike told me in our phone call the day after the accident.
And I do. I felt like an intruder that day in the Smoky Mountains as Mike overflowed with fraternal affection for the son he not only adored but, in a way, envied. I did, too. Most of us spend our lives existing. Kyle lived every minute of his existence. He loved and was loved as much as anyone I’ve ever known, and the fact that he’s the only person I’ve ever seen turn my friend into mush is proof.
At 22, Kyle’s death is a tragedy. His life, though, was a blessing, and I choose to picture him gliding effortlessly over rocks and roots under a canopy of green, his smile peeking through the unruly black beard that had grown like a patch of weeds over the course of weeks.
Hike on, Kyle. Hike on.
