Jade Geneve Kepner

The Bear and I Jade Geneve Kepner

We met on the white line in the middle of Bear Mountain Parkway in up-state New York. There had been an accident. The last thing I remembered was the mountain about to crash through the windshield, and a deep clear voice saying ?Be still, it will be like sleep.? I closed my eyes, and like a deflating helium balloon, let the air seep out of my lungs. When I opened my eyes the white line was turning red from the blood seeping from my head; my legs and back were lead. Boots that belonged to voices that were coming from above my head kept murmuring, ?She?ll never walk again, her legs are in shreds.? I thought, My God they can?t mean me. I was a dancer by profession, to me to dance was as necessary as the need to breathe. Sirens, morphine, operating rooms, then the cold white sheets of a hospital bed. There had to be something, somewhere that was safe, where the words could flow, and pain would go. I could not fight. Eventually, I bean to write my way through two years of endless cold white sheets and long dark nights. Little did I know that I was weaving a novel, my looms were paper and pen. Though well I knew the beginning I would never have guessed the end ? the threads had become tangled with mystery and intrigue ? and as the day grew old I wondered if the story should be told. Then he arrived and perched on top of my pen. At first he was so small I could barely see him at all. Such a funny, silly little bear. A harmonica tucked in his vest, he carried an attaché? case filled with leaves in one hand and a violin in the other. It was clear that he was a dear. He?d borrow my pen then romp up and roam and roll down to the bottom of the page, and lie there smiling at the sky, telling me how good it was to be alive, and I would wonder why. And so it is that the tale of ?The Bear and I? came to be and the journey to the other side of the sky. This is a journey of healing and discovery, adventure and love, growth and discovery. Each of us has our own journey to make and perhaps we can learn from and be enthralled by the journey of the Little Bear ? and have our own tale to tell as our lives are forever changed.