text: With each step I take I feel more and more weight being bestowed upon me. This painstaking journey has brought me nothing but grief and disappointment. The fatigue I feel is like hammers bashing my head telling me I can’t, and I won’t find anything. I feel so deserted with no vegetation to comfort me. When I reach into my backpack I hope for some refreshing water, so when my hand clasps the lumpy bottle I am at ease. Since it’s a brand new water bottle, I twist the lid to hear the satisfying sound that is a mixture of both a crack and a pop. I press the rigid bottle to my lips, and tilt it to get the sensation of crisp cool water. Unfortunately the water's taste isn’t as pleasant as the temperature, it tasted as if a wet dog had just rolled on my tongue. I make a sour face trying to get the taste off my tongue. Unsatisfied, I put the water bottle back into my bag and continued to trek through the barren wasteland, with the only thing motivating me; the reward at the end. As a child I always wondered, wondered how things happened, why they happened. I always wanted to know where my dad had gone. Did he leave, or was he taken? To my knowledge dad didn't have any enemies that could’ve had the motive to harm him, then again he was a very secretive man and I was only 12 when it had happened. I remember the day vividly. While I played with my homework, my mother sat on the couch watching the Late Night Show. Interrupting my learning and a Will Ferrel skit, we hear an ominous knock on the door. Both of our attentions are turned to the door. “Who could that be at this hour?” At 11 o’clock pm I could think of no one who could be at the door. Itcouldn’t apply to me, so I shrugged in confusion and continued to play with my homework. My mom stood up and slowly opened the door. As it creaked open I whipped my head around to see a tall man in the doorway. He was a police officer, with uniform and all He tipped his hat to my mom, then steadily took it off completely. He looked at my mom with a solemn expression. Without a doubt the next thing he said was what changed us forever. He said our father’s business jet had never landed, and they have no idea where it was. For all they knew it would have exploded. My mom gasped, and that’s when I knew she had looked at the cop then the floor appalled. She yelled at the cop demanding to know why, but of course he didn’t know. Mother shouted and cried in denial, no one wanted to believe it. Her shrieks were heartbreaking and traumatizing, I can still remember their shrill sound. The officer tried to calm her but nothing could break her mind free of her terrible thoughts. When I found out that my dad may never return I wailed. I never stopped, for I wailed because I didn’t want to believe it. I wouldn’t believe it. The police officers half heartedly looked where his plane had departed, the airport he was at, and where he went during his business trip. In my heart I knew they would never find him, because they didn’t really care. It wasn’t their own family member gone. They didn’t know I had fallen into a black void of sickening feelings, that brought me nothing but depression and atrocious thoughts. My mom and I fell together after his disappearance. We were a mess day after day, after day as we mourned his sudden perish. Our sorrowful feelings were like hands holding us in the dark, letting no sunlight shine upon us. After some mourning time I was able to condone myself in a respectable manner, in order to search for my father. Though I will never really be cured unless I find him, I am determined to find the exact cause. If I have to go to the ends of the Earth I will. I searched everywhere he might be locally, and after 2 years I had no more places to look. After steadily losing hope for 2 years, 1 month before now I had felt pessimistic. Would anyone ever find my dad? All signs were pointing towards no. I had almost given up, until I talked with my mother and got some vital information. “Hey Clem, could you come here for a second?” “Sure thing mom, what do you need? Wait! Are you okay, it looks like you’ve been crying. What’s wrong mom?” “Well I had been thinking about dad. Do you think it’s time we had a funeral? I mean it’s been 2 years, and I know everyone is trying so hard to find him, but I’ve seriously lost hope. We have no clues as to what happened. No one even knows where his plane went!” “I can’t believe you mom. Your own husband is missing, and you’ve lost hope.” I said in the most disappointed and grim way possible. “It’s been 2 years, Clementine Jones! 2 years! He is dead Clem, and the sooner we come to that conclusion, the better off we'll be in life. We should at least have a celebration of his good times in this world. I would be doing your father and MY husband a disservice if I didn’t give him a proper send off.” “We can celebrate him here, right now, privately. We can talk about good memories we have of him, in hopes of motivating us to find him, or at least the cause. I want answers mom! I need closure, and I won’t rest until I get it, or him back!” “Did he ever get to tell you why your name is Clementine?” mother asked so bluntly and sincerely. “Why are you trying to change the subject so quickly?” “You said you wanted to talk about him, correct?’ I nod my head in agreement. “Well your father and I took a trip up to London, because we had heard of this flourishing garden hike and we just had to see it. At first the surrounding area seemed like it could never have any foliage, but we stepped hundreds more worn down wooden steps, until we had made it. We made it to this large wall encapsulating our reward. Pushing open the large brass door it grated ajar, and we saw the most magnificent flowers. On our right side there were yellow begonia’s next to flourishing blush pink azaleas, in which both bushes of the sweet flowers came to my neck. Beneath our feet were sprigs of glacier white baby’s-breath. We had never seen anything more beautiful, until we saw a welcoming bench underneath a Clementine tree. We climbed a few more wood steps to reach our final destination. Your father and I plopped onto the bench and admired everything with veneration and awe. Above us was a solitary Clementine, your father reached up and grabbed it off the comfort of it’s branch. I put my hand over the textured surface, while it still lay in his. Then your father said, “It’s beautiful. Just like our child will be.” From then on out we knew your name, even before you were an actual human.” Mother and I both had hot sticky tears dribbling down our faces, but this time they were a mixture of happy and sad tears. My father was a great man, and whenever we thought about him it brought many tears to our eyes. “I wish to go there mother. I want to see such wondrous things, just as you and dad did. We might even find some clues there.” My mother explained how she wasn’t going to be able to supervise me on such a trip, but I had grandparents in London so it wasn’t a definite no. Before bed that night mother had called my grandparents’ explaining the importance of the trip. They had agreed to oversee my trip to London and my 3 night stay. I jumped up and down feeling triumphant, for I left tomorrow. When my plane skidded across the runway I was more anxious than ever. Even when I got into my grandparents car I wasn’t content. I needed to see this inconceivable place my father had ventured. I had asked my grandparents about it, but to their knowledge they have never seen, or heard of such a place. They said it should be noted that they could be wrong, and to just search on their home computer. When I did a search on the computer I found an unpromising hiking trail that had the familiar wooden stairs. Worn down to bits and pieces, waiting for it’s next splinter victim. The hike was going to be indeed a challenge, but I had just made plans with my grandmother to go tomorrow morning. One hundred paces in front of me I can see the imagined brass door. After all the suffering of this hike, I had finally come to my end point. There are faint smells of a sweet floral candle, which mesmerized me and pulled me to the door. I go to push the door open, and it creaks ever so shrilly with each step. Finally I fling the door open to see a place so charming, it's unfathomable. My mother hadn’t left a single detail out, and it had remained the exact same over the years. I brush my hands against the unfamiliar flowers as I make my way to the bench. Their pollen sticking to my fingers, but I don’t pay that much attention. I sit down on the weathered bench and brush my hands against the grass underneath it. The grass tickles my finger just as cotton would. As I rub my hand deeper and deeper into the grass, I feel something cold, and rectangular. Getting off the bench I crouch down and sift through the tall grass to see what mysteries lie beneath my nose. While searching I feel small drops of water on my head. Nothing could’ve motivated me more, for it was raining the last morning I saw my dad. I kept sifting through the grass as my hair became dense. The rain starts to turn the once soft dirt to mud, but nothing can stop me at this point. I need to know what this is. I forget it’s raining and find what my hand had touched. A plaque. It reads Matthew Jones 1970-2003: Never forgotten forever a mystery .