22 years after I began reading this story, I have finally finished.

I’m short on words right now to describe the emotions of the past several weeks as I walked and listened while the author brought his story to a close.

Man!  

*gesticulates wildly trying to get you to understand*

*sigh*

It’s a really, really, really good story.  I cannot recommend it enough.

I have some vague thought I can’t quite formulate about how certain books or stories weave themselves into your formative years and how you carry them with you throughout your life, adopting certain values and remembering certain lessons as a sort of patchwork cloak of ethics that you wear as you find your way in the world and into the person you’ll become.  I can’t detail how or why this particular story worked its way so deeply into my psyche, but it did.

And now it’s done… in a way I didn’t think, but may have anticipated as the clues were there all along.  I just didn’t want to listen.

It’s bittersweet to finally close these books and say goodbye to these characters.  I feel like I’ve walked with them for so long.  But maybe we’ll meet again, in the clearing at the end of the path… if Ka wills it.