Heather Thomas

The Glass River Wilderness died on the afternoon of October 5th, when the family of Dominic and Jennifer Ware set off not one, but three, bright blue smoke bombs at a gender reveal party for Jennifer on a clear, sunny, and brutally dry day.

They thought they had extinguished the fire, despite the dad-to-be's idiot brother throwing his cup of whiskey on it at first, but they missed a spark somewhere, and the whole forest burned down.

Glass River was so beautiful that people came from all over the country to visit.

But it was only about an hour away from our home, and I practically grew up there.

There were literally trees with knife notches in the bark marking the height of my cousins and me as we grew.

We camped there at least a couple of times every year.

My aunt Lucy even got married on a mountaintop up there.

And it was all gone now.

After the fire, everybody told us not to go back, not to even look at the pictures.

But my mother couldn't resist.

When she got back that night, she sat at the kitchen table staring blankly ahead.

She tried to talk, but started coughing, and cracked open a beer and drained half of it before she tried again.

I could smell the smoke rolling off of her.

She'd kicked off her hiking boots and they lay crooked on the welcome mat, caked in ash and reeking mud.

Promise me you'll never go, she said.

It's not just that it'll break your heart.

It will make you despair.

So we obviously had to make backup plans for spring break.

I reluctantly agreed when my mom suggested camping at White Rock Mountain, a place we'd never been to before, or even heard much about.

We didn't have much time off between her job and mine, and if we spent it sitting around the house, we'd just end up sniping at each other the whole time.