The boots were heavy. The pack dug into his shoulders. The air at 10,000 feet was thin and bit at his lungs. By all accounts, Caleb should have been miserable. But as he crested the ridge and saw the Peruvian Andes sprawling out before him like the spine of the world, he didn’t feel pain. He felt her.
Elara had spent the last five years of her life in a room painted a cheerful, deceptive yellow. Her world had shrunk from the boundless adventures she dreamed of to the four walls of a hospice suite. Her legs, once strong, had betrayed her.
“One day,” she used to whisper, pointing at the dog-eared copy of National Geographic on her bedside table. “One day, Cal. We’ll go where the air is clean.”
She never made it to the mountains. The sickness took her on a grey Tuesday in November, leaving Caleb with a silence so loud it deafened him.
For months, Caleb sat in that yellow room, staring at her unread magazines. He felt a profound, paralyzing guilt for simply existing. How dare his lungs fill with air when hers had collapsed? How dare his legs carry him to the kitchen when hers couldn’t even carry her to the bathroom?
He was drowning in static grief until he found the journal tucked under her mattress. On the last page, in shaky handwriting, she had written a directive, not a goodbye.
Don’t stay in this room with me, Cal. Go.
Caleb booked the ticket to Peru the next morning.
Now, standing on the precipice, looking at a view that would have made Elara weep with joy, Caleb finally understood the assignment. He wasn’t leaving her behind. He was her vehicle.
He whispered the words into the wind, a promise to the sister he couldn’t see but could certainly feel. “You can’t walk this earth anymore.. but i can.“
He took a step forward, the gravel crunching under his boot. It wasn’t just his muscle moving; it was their shared will. “So i walk for the both of us.“
Every blister, every breathtaking sunrise, every freezing night in the tent—it wasn’t for him. It was an offering. He was consuming the world on her behalf.
He adjusted his pack, feeling a renewed strength surge through his tired legs. He wasn’t wandering aimlessly to escape the pain. He was moving “with love, with purpose..” His purpose was to be the eyes for a soul that had closed hers too soon.
Caleb smiled, tears freezing on his cheeks as the wind picked up. He wasn’t a solo traveler. He never would be again. He continued down the path toward the horizon, walking “with you in my heart every step of the way.“
