It was hard to believe that it had already been a year.  One year ago that day, our son William was delivered stillborn, having died from an umbilical cord accident in the womb.  It was a unfortunate tragedy that I would never forget.

William was cremated one week later, and half of his ashes were scattered on New Year's Eve 2003 under a white rose bush planted in his honor in front of our house.  The other half of his ashes were scattered at Potato Lake, on the Mogollon Rim, during what would have been the first of many camping adventures with him. 

And now, every year, on November 12, John and I will return to Potato Lake to pay our respects.

November 12 fell on a Friday that year, so John and I both had to take the day off from work.  We did, however, take Mary to school on that morning; although she had been present for both ash-scatterings, we felt that we needed to do this without her.

The Jeep had not been running well lately, so we decided to take my car to the Mogollon Rim that morning.  My car - a 2001 Dodge Intrepid with little clearance - had not seen much action on the dirt roads.  Having a Jeep meant that my car didn't have to perform the tricks that our old Oldsmobile had had to do.  So naturally, I was concerned about taking my car on that last half-mile of forest road leading up to Potato Lake.  (Of course, wild horses couldn't keep me away from Potato Lake on that day, so even if we couldn't get there, I had every intention of walking there if I had to.)

"We may have to walk," John said to me on our way up to the Rim.  He wasn't sure if the Forest Service was going to close the forest roads for the winter or not.  There had not been much snowfall on the Rim yet, so it was possible that we would be able to get there without having to walk FR 147, but just in case we were ready for a hike.

When we arrived, we found that all of the forest roads were open, so we had no trouble at all getting to Potato Lake.  In fact, my car did fine just fine on that last half-mile of road going to Potato Lake.  We did crash through an ice pond, but it was nothing like the stunt we had pulled in Flagstaff in the Oldsmobile, when we had truly become "Idiots on Ice".

There was a gentle breeze blowing when we arrived at Potato Lake, and it was quiet...very peaceful.  Hand in  hand, John and I went through the gate and hiked to the other side of Potato Lake, to the spot where we had scattered William's ashes six months before.  Standing there again now, we had a moment of silence; then, we each said a few words to William.

We lingered at Potato Lake for about a half an hour after that, recollecting about the past year.  Although it had been a terrible thing for us to lose our son, our spirit had not been broken, and we continued to live our life to the fullest.  We had to keep living, because we needed to keep on living...because Mary needed us to keep on living...

"We do have a great kid, don't we?" I said.  We were both grateful to have her, and even though we had decided that we would never have another child, we were happy that our lives had been blessed with Mary.

So, having said our good-byes again to William, John and I hiked back to the car and drove away, with promises that we would be back again soon.

By this time, John was not feeling well; he was shivering, he had a sore throat, and his nose was starting to run.  "Great, you're getting sick on me, aren't you?" I joked. 

But John is a die-hard.  Even though he was getting sick, he still wanted to go on a little hike.  After leaving the Mogollon Rim, we stopped at the Deer Creek Trailhead, just south of Rye, so that we could do a short hike on the South Fork of Deer Creek Trail #46.

It had been a long time since we had hiked this particular trail, and it was interesting to see the difference that four years had made.  During the spring of 2004, much of the Mazatzal Wilderness Area - including parts of the Deer Creek and South Fork Trails - had been devastated by a large wildfire that had almost caused evacuations in the city of Payson.  (The fire came close to the Doll Baby Ranch, which skirts the Mazatzal Wilderness in Payson.)  Although there had been some regrowth during the course of the year, most of the mountains were still charred and treeless.  The South Fork of Deer Creek, once lined with trees, looked more like a desert wash. 

We hiked for only about an hour, because even though John is a die-hard, that was all that he could take.  An hour later, after we had spent some time exploring the creek and the trail, we made our way back to the car, and we drove home. 

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