In horror, I saw the rocks start to tumble, I watched him slip, my dearest love rocketing downward as though he were on a waterslide, only there was no water. I shouted to him to slow down, not allowing the reality to enter my consciousness that he was out of control. I thought he shouted back that he wasn't doing it on purpose, but it must have been my mind, finally telling me the truth. He later told me that what he had shouted was "I love you," not knowing whether or not it would be his last chance. Rocks were following him, rocks of all sizes, from a hailstorm of pebbles to ones as large as 10 pound sacks of sugar. My soul wanted to fly out from inside me and snatch him back, to stop the fall. From time to time, we all want wings, to be able to fly. But never before, had this wish been such an aching hunger inside of me.

I was paralyzed with fear and heard him make a noise that sounded halfway between a scream and a cry, once, then again. I screamed "Are you broken Honey?" Several times, with panic in my heart, until I saw him stand, and yell to me to find another way down. I yelled my question again, but he would not answer, only repeat that obvious instruction to me. Only looking back do I now know with what pain and courage he stood to share that insistence. He doesn't even remember standing at this point. I cried "I'm coming Baby . . . it's going to take a while . . . I be there as quick as I can . . . I'm coming . . . I'm almost there . . ." and my internal monologue began, alternately comforting him without his ears to hear, and chastising myself for every loss of footing, every slip, every foolish move. I had to make it down to him safely, if I were to help him. I began to make my way along the edge of the ridge, looking for the first possible way to the beach. I ignored the brush and rocks, taking their cuts without feeling, determined to remain near the edge, eyes constantly scanning for the first possible way down to my dear husband.

Finally, I found a narrow crevice in the cliff, winding down so that I could not see its end. I knew that crevices were the best because you could use your whole body like a spring and maintain leverage. Even though I couldn't see where it led, my desperation to reach Jef decided for me. I carefully lowered myself into the crevice and began moving slowly downward. When I got to a spot where I could see where the crevice lead, my heart sank. There ahead was nothing but smooth rock, and the crevice widened into a flat, rocky slope. I had lowered myself down over six feet, and could not get back up. I had no choice but to continue downward, inch by agonizing inch, my heart telling me to hurry, but my mind knowing I must not. The rock curved under and into the ground and when the crevice became to wide for me to leverage down, I began to jam my right foot into the crack between the rock and the ground, then dig a foothold for my left foot, time and time again, for around twenty-five feet down, until I felt it was relatively safe to slide the rest of the way. I may have determined this to be so too soon, but made it down unharmed anyway, in one of the many miracles we were granted that terrible, great day.

I arrived at the beach, if you can call it that, and started toward where Jef had fallen, scrambling over boulders which became larger and larger as I neared a corner of the rock face. After some time, I could see the place where Jef had fallen, but did not see him there. I fought down my panic and continued on, having to decide at each turn which way seemed to be the best, and not always right.. I slid, climbed, crawled, and walked around house-sized boulders, finding several false leads, backtracking numerous times. At one point, I looked up to see Jef leaning against a fallen tree and hope surged in my chest. Such joy I felt in that moment, that tears filled my eyes. He was still alive, standing even! I waved to him and when he waved back, my joy peaked and was followed by an intense sense of urgency and I continued searching for a way to him.

I finally made it to the rocky beach beyond the boulders. The rocks were large, and my gait unsteady. I abandoned the sensibility of care and jogged, stumbled, slipped, and raced to my hubby. When I arrived, I looked on him with horror. He was covered with blood, his face a grotesque black mask, with strands of coagulated blood hanging from his chin. His shoulders and shirt were covered as well, and his eyes bore a blank, nearly lifeless looking gaze. I was totally panicked, terrified, and frozen, but he would not, did not let me fall into despair. He began to speak to me in a soft, calm, but firm voice. "I need you to be calm, Honey. I need you to be careful. I need you to be brave. I need you to go for help." He pulled me in, and shared his courage with me. "OK. OK. OK, I answered, again and again, shaken, overwrought, desperately pulling at his strength.

I wanted so badly to just make him lie down, call an ambulance, and hold his hand until it arrived. I asked him if I could do anything to make him comfortable. He had me to help him into a little alcove, protected from the wind and rain, and asked me to bring him water from one of the little runoffs we had passed the previous day. The closest on was only about fifty yards away. We slowly, painfully eased him into a sitting position under the large tree stump that formed the alcove. I noticed a large white cotton marine rope and started to tug at it, trying to bring it over to Jef to give him something softer than those retched rocks to rest on, hoping to coil it up like a matt, but it was huge, and heavy, and wouldn't budge. I grabbed one of our empty pop cans out of a back pack and went to fill it. When I returned, he took a few more moments to try to calm me down, and I suggested he should try to stay awake, despite the pain and fatigue. It was a chilly, overcast day, and fearing he would go into shock, I gave him my shirt to cover his shoulders. His own over-shirt lay in shreds from the fall, and he had only a tank top left. I hated to leave him, but knew I had to go. We said our "I Love You's" with the depth of those who don't know if they will ever be able to say them again. He extracted a promise that I would be as careful as humanly possible. I knew I must. His life depended on it. I extracted from him a promise to stay alive in return.

I started out with the realization of what lay ahead. We had taken eight hours to come to this point the day before, and even counting for our having been exploring and leisurely pace then, the best I could hope for was about six hours. During that time, I knew I could not let one single tear fall, or the flood would follow. I would not be able to stop crying, and it would cripple me. I shut off my emotions as best as I could and began my trek to find help.

I had two levels of thinking going on through those long hours back. On the surface of my consciousness was an urgent, running monologue. Each step and every move became a deliberate decision, and my disembodied mind instructed my limbs . "Be careful." "Maybe it would be faster to walk up on that ridge." "How far have I come?" "I think I remember this part." "Go that way, it looks like the best way to go." "Be careful." "Stay calm." And with each stumble or slip came a string of chastisements. "You've got to be more careful than that!" Beneath that, in my heart, there was another running dialogue; a sadder, less hopeful and courageous one. "I can't go on without him. This can't be happening. He is my life, please don't take him from me."

Along the coast, I never stopped to rest, but would force myself to alter my path whenever I saw a run-off in order to take a drink. I knew it was as important to not become dehydrated as it was to carefully choose my path, but even so it was hard to take even this small amount of time out of my straight line forward. I wanted so desperately to get Jef help before it was too late. Throughout those six hours, I felt no pain or cold. Without thinking, I would grab mussel-covered rocks which cut and tore the skin of my palms, and be grateful for them because I knew they were not slippery. They would hold me and not allow me to fall, unlike those smooth, deceptively dry looking ones covered with the thinnest layer of slime that would send you to your knees.

At some point, I picked up a bright orange buoy and tied it around me in the desperate hope that someone would pass above and be curious about a bright orange blob bouncing up and down, moving around on the beach and investigate. I swung it high in circles, and called out futilely to the one passing plane I saw on that quiet Monday. "Oh why," I thought, "couldn't it have been the weekend, when there would be much greater hope of finding someone before I made it all the way back to Seaside?"

Every promontory would bring the same questions to my mind; "How far have I come? How far do I have to go?" One particular spot that I remembered from the day before and was looking for never seemed to materialize and I kept thinking "My God, I haven't even gotten that far?" I had known it would take time, but that fact was unbearable under the circumstances. At one point, close to despair, I took one brief moment out of my precious time, kneeled, and prayed for Jef's life. Shortly after that, along the way, I was hugging a large, smooth boulder, trying to get around it. It had no hand hold to grab on to, so I angled myself against it, hugging it and clutching as best as I could with my hands as I scaled around a corner. It was there, I looked up, just above my right hand, and saw a nickel-sized hole, with a crystal growing out of it. It was a sign of hope for me, and I tugged it loose, feeling as though it represented Jef's life, and I held it in my hand.

Finally, I was approaching what I believed to be the last promontory. I kept asking myself "Is that it? Is that the last one?" I looked at the light house, it's distance and angle from where I stood, thought that it might be, but dared not get my hopes too high. It took me an hour to reach it, but as I got around and saw the faded outline of Seaside in the distance, a rush of pure relief filled my veins. I was on the last stretch. Now, the monologue in my conscious mind returned to Jef. "Yes! I'm almost there, Baby...I can see Seaside." "Hang on, Sweetie, you'll have help soon." For a while, at each new turn, he received a silent progress report, and encouragement. I began to look for the path that we had followed the day before to get to the beach. At one point, in a grassy cove that reached close to the beach, I saw a doe staring at me. "Please show me the path," I begged out loud. I turned away for a second, and when I looked back, the doe was gone. I thought that this just might be the game trail we had descended on, discarded the bright buoy as it would be useless under cover, and began to climb up the hill and into the woods. I guess maybe I was driven by a desperate need to find help quickly, but I headed up either too soon or too late into the forest. I found only short, vague paths that quickie disappeared, and was soon hopelessly lost. Had it not been for the ever-present roar of the ocean, I might have never gotten to help.

I was beginning to get thirsty again, not having seen any streams for quite some time, and ate berries for both moisture and sustenance whenever I found them. Periodically, I would shout for help in the hope that someone would be hiking and hear me, but again, it was Monday. The forest became thicker and thicker, slowing my progress to a painful crawl. I finally arrived at a steep slope where the entire ground layer was comprised of huge, moss-covered fallen trees. It was foreboding. I felt like an elf in giant-land. I began to make my way upward; over, under, and around trees bigger around than I am tall. I was so tired. I thought it would have been so easy to just go to sleep. Occasionally, the terrible thought that Jef might not even still be alive crept into my consciousness. I remember thinking that if Jef wasn't alive, I didn't want to be, either. Several times, at these moments, I would just lay down, thinking I would just lay there until I died myself. But each time lasted only seconds. I did not know if he was dead, and as long as there was hope, I couldn't stop. Aside from that even, I couldn't deny a notion that I would know if he died. I would feel it, or sense him go. He and I were so close, we loved each other so much, and aside from the dark fantasies borne of fatigue, I had not really felt that he had died. So I got up and kept going.

I had wasted an hour and a half crawling desperately around in the woods, getting nowhere. I became terrified that I might already have wasted too much time, and could gamble on finding the path no more I began to head back to the beach. At least there I would know which direction I was going. Down is always easier than up, and I made it to the ridge above the beach rather quickly and began looking for a way down. I came across another ravine and eased myself into it. This one was higher than the last, but it had no bone-crushing rocks at the bottom, which I could see this time as well. I don't know if Jef would be proud of me or angry for the risk, but I chose to make my way down rather that spending even more time looking for a better one. There was no crevice to wedge my foot into, so I descended digging footholds on both sides this time, carefully inching my way down, and again arrived on the beach safely.

I was in sight of our home town again, and again my hope rose. I had lost my bright-colored buoy, but remembered that I had on bright pink underwear , so I removed them from under my jeans and began waving them frantically over my head in the hopes of attracting attention, again, to no avail. I was a speck in the scenery. Finally, however, after another mile or so, I could see the houses on the hill above the cove. "I'm here baby," I told Jef, "I'm here at the houses. Help will be there in minutes" I arrived below the first and began shouting for help,. but got no answer, then again and again, house after house after house. I walked down the entire row, stopping to yell, beg, plead below the empty windows of each one, but no one was home. Half a mile later, the steep hill was gone, as were the tall sea-walls, and I came to a house at which the driveway ran straight through from the beach to the road. I saw a vehicle pass on the road, and knew this would be the best way to get attention. Arriving at the front of this house, I saw a man pruning his bushes. I ran to him shouting, screaming "My husband fell off a cliff and is badly hurt, please call for help." The man looked at me and hurried into his house, coming back out with cell phone in hand, and the police on the line. I collapsed onto my knees, in a curled up ball on the driveway, and six long hours worth of pent up tears finally began to flow.

A helicopter was dispatched, and in less then an hour word arrived from the Coast Guard. It was undoubtedly the happiest moment of my life. I was sitting in the back of a waiting ambulance when they radioed in that Jef was not only still alive, but my big, strong bull had managed to remain conscious, or at least conscious enough to hear the helicopter and flag them down. I knew then he would live. One of the police, fearing me trying to drive in my emotional state, gave me a ride to the local hospital where Jef was delivered. Later, after some tests, I "hitched" a ride in the ambulance when they decided to take him to the trauma center in Portland. I would be stranded, but Jef was alive and nothing else mattered. Gratefully, the hospital allowed me to stay there in the room, by his side. I had been forced against all wishes to leave him alone and injured on that rocky beach for seven long hours, and I was unwilling to leave his side for quite some time after that.