I sat on the edge of a ravine looking at where the Leakeys found their Lucy, eating lunch and imagining. I wondered if Lucy saw the same red, green, blue and black birds I saw, and why they should be so red and green and blue and black.

I thought about here, wondered if I could talk to her, and I had the sense I could if I sat there long enough, if I could just rid myself of my Western clutter, if I could just open my eyes. I asked her if I could come back, maybe humbler, maybe wiser, if she would talk to me then.

I was so close, she was so close and yet I didn't have the ability to let go enough to join her - not in death, but in life, not in body but in spirit and beyond.

I had to leave, the group was going, but I left what I could of myself there and hope to go back and get it someday. No humbler, I'm afraid, and not much wiser, but maybe a bit more teachable.

The experience transcended friendship, or love as I've experienced it, and "talking" and "seeing" are inadequate expressions of the communication I thought almost possible for the briefest time.

I miss her.

Every word of that is true.