(Writer’s Note: this is not a eulogy, even though it should be. I’m sorry for that, Sam)

Up high along the peaks of the Smokies where Tennessee and North Carolina meet I met a deer. I was hiking because I didn’t know what else to do with myself. I had lost a friend, and life was changing rapidly, and work was going so well I felt guilty, and all the promise and potential felt like a heavy burden. So, I packed my bag and left.

The deer was completely unafraid. It ate grass calmly and glanced up only at sudden movements, but even then, only nonchalantly. It didn’t seem apathetic so much as unimpressed, which was a comfort. It’s incredibly nice to be cared about without expectation. So many people are as invested in me as I am in them, and this is good, it helps the world go round, but it is tiring, and sometimes I don’t feel like I have much to invest anyways.

But the deer didn’t care about anything like that. I ate my peanuts, it its grass, and we were content. No trades were necessary, or even wanted. We were simply happy to be there on the grassy bald, enjoying the breeze and the birds and the sun. Below us the clouds sat in the valleys like a frame of waves crashing against the shore. They jutted and rolled, texturing the scene with a vivid stillness. I enjoyed them greatly, and I think the deer did too. It would throw its head towards the sunrise and just stare for a few seconds between mouthfuls. It probably looked different for the deer than it did for me, but I imagine the dawn’s warmth felt similar.

The deer and I had met the night before. I sat looking over the valley when I heard a rustle behind me. I figured it was another person, so I decided to ignore them in hopes they’d leave, but when they lingered, I turned around and saw the deer. Once I acknowledged it, it dipped its head and left. It came back to my tent later when the sun was setting, and we sat together a while. We stayed silent till it went off to its bed and I to mine.

The night was far colder than I expected. A couple thousand feet below, nights bottomed out at about seventy degrees, but up here it would get down near fifty and was very windy. The tent shook fiercely just after the sun set and right before it rose, and the cold condensation inside would run down the plastic siding to where my head was pressed against it, the tent being too small. So, my hair was damp, and the blankets thin, but it felt good, nonetheless. It felt like the right place to be.

I would wedge one foot in the crotch of my knee for a bit, then the other. It was a matter of two steps forward, one step back, but one degree at a time my feet got warmer. I tried to think about Sam, my friend, but was disappointed when every reflection felt more about me than him. I wanted to remember something that was purely him, all about him, but couldn’t. There was one moment I couldn’t stop thinking about.

I had just been called to Colorado as a Mormon Missionary. It was a decision I was unsure about, and Colorado was not the place I wanted to go. I held back the tears as best I could, though a little sadness leaked through. As I went around taking photos with people, shaking hands, and laughing up a façade, Sam came over in turn. He said in a whisper, “don’t worry, Till, just give me a call and I’ll come pick you up.”

I don’t know if he said it because he thought I was being coerced into serving a mission, or if he just thought it would be funny, or because he could see I needed to hear something comforting, and that was his way of saying “we’ll always be here for you.” It probably wasn’t the latter, he couldn’t have known how alien I felt at that moment, like I was stuck in a process of perpetual loss and I had no way out. He couldn’t have been saying, “Till, you’re not losing anyone, you’re doing what you need to do, finding the answers you need to find, and we’ll be ready to come and pick you up when you’re ready.” I don’t think that’s what he meant, but that’s how I took it, and it was tremendously comforting to hear.

As I laid there, shivering, I hated that that was all I could think about. That one line kept playing in my head, that line that meant so much to me and which I doubt he ever remembered rattling off. So, I just laid there, shivering, grinding my teeth while the wind whipped, and the condensation gathered like tears on the tent side. That night I didn’t even dream of him. I dreamt of a fat black man, and Mexican food, and an empty cup.

I woke up small, curled into a ball as a darkling thrush chirped in the sunshine. The deer was waiting for me on the ridge. Its coat was full and thick, and appeared combed, though I knew it wasn’t. It glistened with the morning dew. Every one of its movements were performed with incredible grace. It would rip the grass from the ground in large tuffs and intersperse flowers into its meal to nibble on. It was in no rush in the world. No one was counting on it.

I often wanted to speak up, to break the silence, but I didn’t. Instead, I read, “On the Importance of Keeping a Notebook” by Joan Didion. I was constantly amazed at how well she wrote: “so the point of my keeping a notebook has never been, nor is it now, to have an accurate factual record of what I have been doing or thinking. That would be a different impulse entirely, an instinct for reality which I sometimes envy but do not possess.”

The feeling of perpetual loss came back to me as I read. I realized that everything I was seeing was ending as quickly as it was happening. Each strand of the morning light found its way into my eye’s dark center and ceased to be, and soon it would be forgotten, or distorted, and never accurately communicated; “for however dutifully we record what we see around us, the common denominator of all we see is always, transparently, shamelessly, the implacable ‘I.’”

No matter how hard I tried to think of Sam, I thought of myself. When we were in middle school, we loathed each other because we were so similar. Tall, skinny, smart, sociable, athletic, we were both kids of promise, but he seemed to know what he was while I always doubted. I envied him for that. Every joke he landed, every shot he made, every girl he talked to spurred my insecurity. I wonder now if he didn’t feel the same. Maybe so, maybe not.

When I finished the piece I just sat there, the deer had not moved. It continued to nibble the same ten square feet for another hour. I thought again about speaking up. I thought to name it, to call it Sam, to talk with it, but I didn’t because it’s not Sam, and I didn’t want to put that on the deer. I wanted to just let it be exactly what it is. At the very least I could give it that.

Finally, before leaving, it stood up straight and stared directly at me. It did this for a few minutes, as if it was trying to communicate something deep, profound, and needed, but it wasn’t, I know that. It was just looking at me for whatever reason a deer suddenly finds a human interesting. I don’t know why, nor do I feel the need to know.

“I imagine, in other words, that the notebook is about other people. But of course it is not…. Remember what it was to be me: that is always the point.” I think Didion is right, but as I watch the deer walk away I feel at peace, nonetheless. When it is out of sight I lay back on the grass and stare at the branches above me, the shaking blossoms, and the drifting clouds.