I never intended for anyone to get hurt. I thought a vacation would be fun for us. It was supposed to be a break from the city life, a breath of clean air. I had planned a hiking trip in Yosemite National Park with my friends. It was going well, the first day was camping and the second was a challenging hike in the mountains. I was an experienced hiker, but I trusted that beginners like my friends could have done it. However, our itinerary unexpectedly changed. Now I wished that trip had never happened. I still remember. We all remember, Mora’s petrified face. It has been 2 years since it happened yet it echoes in my head like I’m still living in it.
I can still recall the rush of adrenaline, my emotions racing, my desperation, the tears running. I could remember after the excitement sitting in the back of the ambulance hearing the sirens, the choppers swirling above, the powerful winds breaking through the towering pine branches and the indistinct chatter of police men, reporters and the public gathering.
I lifted to see the rest of the group scattered in different places of the sectioned off area of the scene. They were wrapped in blankets, eyes swollen and distant, red puffy faces crusted with dry saline, and their shoulders slumped and lifeless. I felt horrible. What was once a smiling, happy group of inseparable friends, is damned with indescribable pain as heavy as the weight of the world on their shoulders.
I had returned home in my crummy apartment in San Francisco, but it didn’t feel like home. For weeks strangers were knocking at my door, asking me questions about that day. Strangers followed me anywhere I went retelling me about a part of my life I would gladly change. My life and my pain was public as goes the life of my friends too. All this happened from that day to the events that followed and the agony of my friends and myself started with our friend Mora. It all sparked when her foot slipped and she started to fall.