Her birthday is coming up in May and I have been quietly planning a special birthday celebration- if tonight had not happened, nobody would ever have known about my plan. You see, there was a trail we used to take walks on. We walked after work and on weekends. We walked our dogs and we had the most amazing conversations and on the day before she had to put down her best friend Cassidy, she asked me to take a walk with them and take pictures on that trail. I turned the pictures into a video that she told me was the best thing anyone had ever done for her. The trail was a special place for us, so on her birthday this year I planned to visit the trail for the first time since her death- just to spend time being as close to her as I could get.
But it is not yet her birthday, it is today. And I am heading to Durham to skate at Wheels, but I am running ahead of schedule. I drive past the road the leads me to her apartment (the trail ran right behind her apartment) and I wonder for the first time if I can still remember exactly how to get there. I mean, it would be super sad to go out on her birthday only to discover that I didn't remember the way to the special trail. So I take the road. This is the first time I have been on the road since long before her death and I see the path where I would often see her walking from the bus stop and the places she rode her bike and the hill she made me skate down the first time I tried inline skates. But my car totally remembers where to go- a left here, a right here, bear to the left there. Then I get to the main apartment road and there are little side roads of apartments that all look exactly the same but have different names. The second sign says Butler and that sounds familiar, so I pull in and park in front of the apartment I remember to be hers. I jump out of the car and almost run to the left of the building because I am 100% sure that is how we got to the trail, but I stop short when i see a large truck parked there. I walk all the way around the truck, sure it must be hiding the path to the trail, but all I find is construction equipment and gang related graffiti on the side of the truck. Thinking I must have gotten my left and right confused, I walk behind the building (surely freaking out all the tenants who have their back doors open on such a nice afternoon- who's the creepy girl dressed in all black in our back yard?), but still find no path. That is when I start to freak out a little. I mean, this HAS to be the right place- everything looks exactly like I remember it except without the trail. How could I have forgotten something so important??? I walked to the left of the building 3 different times and made 2 full loops around the building but never found anything. Breaking into tears, I walked into the woods and watched the trees blow in the breeze while I cried, so ashamed that I had let Jess down again. I whispered "Where is it, Jess?", but the only answer I got was the rustling of the leaves, so I went back to the car. I was sobbing as I headed out of the complex toward Durham, but something felt very wrong about the way I was pulling out of Jessica's apartment. As much as my car had remembered how to get me to the apartment, it also remembered that the road was winding the wrong way as I made my exit.
Just one road past Butler was Melanie Court and I literally screamed "MELANIE!" when I saw the name because THAT is where my friend had lived. Repeat scene from above- I parked at her apartment and ran to the left of the building. But rather than finding a rotting truck, I saw a massive rabbit. I was so excited to KNOW I was in the right place that I piped up "Hey rabbit!" and he just stared at me, not budging. I walked close enough to kick the bunny (but I didn't- promise) before he hopped away and when my eyes followed the direction of his hop, I saw the wide open path that led to the trail. Everything was exactly as I had remembered except for this huge DEER standing right in the middle of the path! A friggin DEER! I'm in the middle of chapel hill in the middle of the day with a parking lot on one side and a trail (where kids were riding bikes and screaming) on the other side and this deer is just standing in a wide open path staring at me like "do you see the trail, dumbass, or do i need to ask my elephant friend to come lead the way?" I couldn't take my eyes off the deer and I stood there for several minutes just staring at her and she stared right back at me. I thought about Jess and how she may have been the only person who loved animals more than I do and there was no doubt in my mind that when I asked the question "Where is it, Jess?" she would have only seen fit to send animals to answer. Then I thought that nobody would ever believe this story without pictures so I pulled out my phone and started snapping away. I walked about 10 feet closer and took more pics. Besides the occasional ear twitch she never moved. I finally decided that I wasn't going to win this contest so I said "Goodbye deer!" and walked away, but when I was almost to the parking lot I turned back around and she was still right there in the clearing, watching me walk away. See you next month, deer.
