He left her a note on the bed.

I have to go.
Have a good life.
Don’t look for me.

He told me stories about his past. He used to slam down shots of whiskey before working in the mines in Kentucky. Just a paycheck away from being homeless, he always had cash for the drink. He traveled the country, without specific destinations, and worked the kinds of jobs that broke other men. He drank his way through his relationships. The drink lasted for years. Left two wives, he said. Laughed when he told me. I am sure that there were more women, he just didn’t have the time to share those stories. I’ve mixed up the wives, their names and dates. I know he has a son, about my age. He never told me the son’s name.

Behind the warm, mischievous blue eyes, bubbled the blood of a wanderer. I think she honestly believed, as we all did, that the vagabond died when he put on the gold ring. He fidgeted with it sometimes, spinning it on his finger when he talked about leaving her. She stayed with him through treatments for a life-threatening ailment, through financial hiccups, depression, stress, emergency room trips, and vicious fights. She left a good job to be his partner in the new life in Gainesville.

This holiday season was their best ever, I heard. The presents overflowed beneath the Christmas tree. Their New Year’s celebration bubbled with joy and love. They celebrated with family, friends and hope for the future. Less than a week later, he left her, their dog, all of his belongings, his phone his address book, his whole life — except his guns. Perhaps he tried to make it as much as it could be because he knew he was going. Or, maybe he didn’t know he was getting ready to leave, but felt something in his bones, and tried to push it back by immersing himself in the steady turn of time during the holidays. Who really knows the thoughts of those kind of men.

With nineteen thousand dollars (part of the money from the sale of their house in Orlando) , he disappeared. Retreating back to the origin of his pain, of his unstable life, of his past - he could have taken the guns for many reasons. I’m still unsure as to their significance in his life. He never showed them to me, never talked about them. Perhaps he kept the danger to himself. He kept many things to himself.
And then there is a decade of marriage severed with a note. Cowardly? I never thought him to be a coward. Selfish? Absolutely. I don’t think he ever understood what he meant to those around him, most especially, his wife. He darkened everything. Bathing a relationship in dark shadows makes it easier to justify moving into a lighter path. He could have almost justified his departure as an escape from dark misery. Or, perhaps, he didn’t care to begin with.

He bought me an ivy plant for my birthday, and I put the pot on my front steps. The vine grows wildly, clinging to certain stones and avoiding other spots. It’s a lot like he was - vibrant and wild.

You can’t tame the nature of Nature.
And you can’t tame the nature of a man with the wanderer in his blood.

Blessed travels, my friend. May you find peace in the mountains of your birth.