text: Lying in the tent on his back, he held the picture with both hands and illuminated it with the flashlight sticking out of his mouth. It was a picture of his wife. He almost envisioned her lying next to him in a sleeping bag. She would have been asleep already; she had not been a night-owl. Gripping the picture tightly, he struggled to keep tears from flowing out of his eyes. He turned the flashlight off and set it down along with the picture. The night was quiet, and through the tent he heard the gentle wind rustle the pine trees. The nearby creek peacefully trickled along through the forest. He attempted to focus on the surrounding wilderness, rather than on his painful memories. He sat there for a while until he eventually fell asleep. An indistinguishable sound woke him up. He sat listening, intensely focused on the noise from the outside. A low growling appeared out of nowhere, and it sent a jolt of adrenaline throughout his body. The growling began to grow louder, and he sensed a creature was stalking toward the tent. He heard snorting and sniffing, and the volume of the noises convinced him it was a large animal-- most likely a grizzly bear. The sniffing came closer, and he feared the beast was right outside his tent. Eyes wide open and body frozen with fear, he listened as it paced around his encampment. His heart was beating intensely, and his jaw tightened harshly. After about a minute, the noise abruptly withdrew. Perhaps the brute had become bored and lumbered away. Not trusting his ears, he sat for an hour before deciding to go outside. He set his picture and flashlight in his day-pack, put it on his back, and grabbed the 12-gauge shotgun propped against the inside of the tent. His two-person Marmot tent contained a zipper to exit on either side of the tent. Last hearing the creature on his right, he slowly unzipped the left exit all the way. He poked his head out, and peered around before getting out. The night was ominously dark, and the moon was completely blocked by clouds. Shotgun ready, he observed the forest surrounding him and saw no animals. A sigh of relief escaped his mouth. *Thank God*, she would have said. That was one of her favorite lines; she used to say it at least ten times a day. He wiped the sweat off his forehead as he stared up at the bleak night sky, void of any stars. Beginning to think about her again, he tried to distract himself. The purpose of his trip was to get away from everything-- a distraction from his sorrows. He studied the tops of the evergreen trees, thoroughly staring at each tree to examine its shape. A snarl from behind erupted out of the silence of the wilderness. A second wave of adrenaline crushed him with immediate force. He spun around aggressively and pointed his gun at the enormous, snarling, 800-pound grizzly bear that stood before him. Standing about fifteen feet away, the beast bared its sharp, threatening teeth, and he felt it attempting to impose its dominance over him. The blood inside him turned to lead, and his mind went blank. He struggled to overcome the mounting dread the bear established within him. He hadn’t felt such an overwhelming rush of terror since the day she died. Unexpectedly, the mental images of that day flashed into his vision. Sirens. Police cars. His bloody leg. An ambulance. Her eyes, gazing up at him as she slipped away. The bear pulled him back to reality with a primal, guttural growl that shook him to his core. His mind became clear. Keeping his gun pointed at the beast, he slowly backed away, step-by-step. The bear maintained a menacing glare and took a step toward him. He shifted the gun’s direction off to the side a few feet and pulled the trigger. The deafening crack caused the bear to recoil slightly, and he sensed its imposing dominance waver. He pointed the gun back at the bear and started to back away once more. The bear did not follow this time, so he kept going. He was now fifty feet away from it. He kept backing up until he reached the creek, about a hundred feet away. He barely saw the bear’s menacing glare penetrating through the wilderness. He felt the contents of his pack poking into his back. He was grateful that he grabbed his bag before leaving the tent. Disregarding the staring beast due to the distance between them, he crossed the creek. The water was icy cold and chilled him to the bone. Upon reaching the other side, he fell into a dead sprint through the forest. After running for twenty minutes, he dropped to the ground next to a large cedar tree. The bear was nowhere to be seen, so he rested. He slept through the whole night. The bright, uncovered sun woke him up along with the warm, brushing breeze. For a while he sat there, enjoying the beauty of the forest. Eventually, he opened his pack and took out the picture. He set her down, and his hands began to dig. They dug a sizable hole next to that cedar tree. When finished, he took one last look at her and placed the picture in the hole. As his hands covered the hole back up, a cleansing sensation washed over him, and he felt whole once more. He got up, found the trail, and began to head back to the trailhead.