Click…5…4…0…7…1…0…5…4…8…7… the ringing of a phone hundreds of miles away cut through the brisk air of rural Maine until it finally gave way to the soothing voice of my mother. As my brother Isaac and I stood on the side of a highway, I recall attempting to puzzle out the course of events that led me to this payphone in the middle of the woods without any regard for how the following question would shape the beginning of the rest of my life. “Are you going to stay here or go?”
The events leading up to our predicament have taken me quite some time to piece together, however I recollect there being a fight between my older brother Isaac and my father, who at the time had taken us on a camping trip to Acadia National Park during our annual stay due to our parents’ divorce. After the bout, Isaac swept me up and fled down to the beach, which, in reality, was not a beach at all but rather a hazardous playground for adventurous children. It was a strip of coastline shrouded in moss covered boulders that were repetitively bashed by the icy waves of the ever advancing and retreating Atlantic Ocean, creating saltwater pools inhabited by creatures of all shapes and sizes. We spent hours enveloped by the ocean mist gazing down into the pools, trying to discern these little worlds beneath my finger tips and on special occasions reaching my hand into the crystalline pools and creating ripples across this foreign world in search of creatures peaking my interest. I felt a slight twinge of fear each time I reached into one of these abyssal pools that something may be waiting beneath the kelp to drag me in, however this fear just made me more careful in my shenanigans. After we spent a rather long period of time journeying through this rugged wonderland, I believe my brother devised a course of action, and we proceeded back to the camping area.
Our trek back was less than spectacular to an adult, however, the endless woods preparing to shed their leaves created endless possibilities for a child’s imagination. We walked in silence, finding no words to be said but the ones no one wishes to say. As we made our way back I strove to dodge all leaves, doing my best to avoid the ones parachuting in from the sky. At least until I came across leaves that stretched the width of my face, enveloping me in nature as I poked holes in them for my eyes and proceeded to create my very own makeshift mask. Games back in those days were so much simpler and so much more fun. Peering into the depths of the forest as pine trees, the deepest shade of green imaginable, clashed with the occasional deciduous trees crimson leaves as they prepared to descend from the heavens onto our miniscule universe. This picturesque scene is embedded in my mind as we ventured back to the only pay phone I’ve ever paid any heed to.
It was a decrepit old box standing tall despite the twinges of rust running up and down its surface and a shiny black phone slick to the touch, but this beast of a machine held the most tantalizing sound I’ve heard to date, my mother’s voice. Isaac dialed the laundry list of numbers on our phone card and waited as the phone rang. On the third ring, my mother picked up with a hello filled with all the care and compassion that a mother feels towards her children. As my mother and Isaac began speaking I sat down on the concrete and felt its cold surface leech the warmth from my body. As I sat and listened to their voices murmur a dialect universal to the careful listener I began to lose myself in the scenic beauty of the natural world, at least until Isaac turned to me and prompted me with a question and statement I’ve held onto to this day. He told me, “I’m going home, are you going to stay here or go? Either way you’re my brother and I’ll love you.” It was an easy answer for me at the time, and it is an easy answer to this day.
I gazed down at the ground, attempting to puzzle out what to make of this question, but there were no answers hidden within the earth, so I lifted my chin and made my decision that provided the foundation for the man I am today. I told Isaac that I wanted to leave with him and this is a decision I have not regretted to this day. Despite countless proddings to rekindle a relationship with my father I have come to the conclusion that a man who decided to cease being my father by his actions has no place in my heart.
Everyone has decisions to make in their lives that will define their own individual story personalized to their very character until the day we die. These decisions are what make us unique from one another, from our actions, to our morals; they are what make us who we are. There is a story behind everyone that is worth listening to because within each person is a tale that may reveal a little more about you. From our differences arise our similarities. The lesson I learned in retrospect is the appreciation and sacrifice of family as Isaac gave up a piece of his childhood to protect me from things a seven year old should have no part in. Despite all the hardships we may have endured, and will continue to endure, we must capture these picturesque moments in history that solidify our place in the minds and hearts of those around us.