Wolf’s Journey

“Light in the Attic”

For my wife this Trek has been a dream she has had since meeting a man named Lee the Horse Logger for me it was a chance to experience a great journey with someone I love very much, that is until recently when I started to notice certain changes in both my behavior and my mind.

Imagine if you will that one day you wake up and have a rather unnatural fear of death, for me with what I’ve done and been through in the military this made no sense but I pushed on and fought it. Then soon afterwards I started becoming more vulnerable to my stress, it became so bad that my body would feel like it was attacking itself to stop me. Coming from the army I only knew to push on and keep fighting and I never had trouble with that before  but this time for some reason it didn’t work .

Finally, after almost 6 months, I thought everything was going to normal until my wife talked about our wedding and I realized I couldn’t remember it at all. It got me to thinking about other  things and I couldn’t remember tham either. I started realizing I couldn’t remember anything past that 6 month period and worst of all I couldn’t remember any of my childhood and I had a great childhood–I had perfect parents, a great life, and grandparents that loved me .

One morning you wake up and its like your whole life has been erased– everything just gone– the only way you can trace a thought is to see the picture and even then you have to struggle to maintain it longer then a lighting flash. Soon it got worse. Short term memory started to disappear and more of my long term was being erased. I got nervous about it when I couldn’t remember past the month and scared when I started to forget where I was driving after only leaving the house.

My wife reminds me and tries to help me and turns it into a puzzle or game to help me recollect, but it gets worse.  I met my birth mother this month and I remember nothing of it.  Achievements as recent as a bathroom remodel are gone and I know that in another couple of weeks I’ll forget that I ever wrote this for anyone, but there is a bright ray of hope and that is Raymond! I find that I can recall the first time I saw him the first trailer ride and everytime I trained him, much like my memories of the army.

If you asked my first time in basic “what did you eat” I’ll say a glasss of water, small salad, and meat loaf. I was the last platoon in line so I had ten minutes to eat. If you asked how I felt about owning my first house I can’t tell you because I don’t remember, but if you ask what I did the first time I met Raymond I’ll tell you I tipped my hat up and then back down because just then we got a bit of rain, he looked at me with a curiosity and pushed his nose out to sniff. I don’t know why I have retained these memories specifically and in time if I don’t remember but a day I will always have Raymond and my memories of him.

So DonkeyTrek is combining Raymond and my wife and an incredible experience that is somehow similar in my train of thought to the army and if all I remember in the coming years are the battles the bombs and my time with a velveteen donkey, then I’ll go anywhere it takes because I’ll have those memories of him and my wife on this journey.