This year I've come to realize how much I appreciate walking along a beach with my mom.

Most recently, there was New Year's on Virginia Beach and then this Mother's Day in Glenwood Canyon.

There's something about the edge of land and water. Staring across the opaque, endless sea, or following the roiling waves of a river with my eyes feels all the same to me. I find my head sloshing in thought, remembering the past and what could have been, and wondering what will come to be.

I found myself in such a moment this last Sunday, sitting at the edge of severe rapids on the Colorado River.

Longing to feel the spray and rushing power of the plunging water, I sat on a large granite boulder protruding into whitewater. Not wanting to be that close, Mom sat on the bank a few feet away.

We sipped some beers I'd stashed in my backpack and remembered memories. With my back to the water, I looked into her face only to stare back at myself in the reflection of her sunglasses, my figure surrounded entirely by white, violent waves within the frame of her glasses. The crashing liquid behind me was now also before me and, indeed, all around me; and I remembered the memory we weren't talking about.

Seven years ago, I'd almost had to watch my mom die at my feet on the remote shores of the Tatshenshini River, near the Alaska-Yukon border.

I hadn't cried or seemed to feel much of anything but detached urgency when I'd watched our four friends drag her onto the muddy shore. It was so strange to see Jonathon cut her from the freezing clothes. All I could do was frantically cut firewood, sweat dripping from my brow, trying to somehow make it better by sawing faster, wondering, wondering, wondering what was about to happen as the oppressive cloud of mosquitoes droned on and on, nature's voice of indifference.

There may never be adequate words to describe the cottony ball of sickness I felt watching the raft flip, spilling gear and people into the 33-degree water that carried my mother away in an instant; being stuck on a cobbly island, hundreds of miles from anywhere, seeing the speck of her head shrinking around the bend on the vast northern snake of a river, unsure if I would ever see her again.

This was no guided trip. Survival was up to us five remaining crew members, who were now chasing a lost raft and a person who might already be dead.

We found her with her arms wrapped on a log, barely keeping her face above the surface. Jonathon, a veteran of many years in the Alaska wilderness, jumped off the cataraft into the chest-deep water and pulled my mom onto the nearest bank.

She was alive but incoherent with severe hypothermia. "Don't let Derek see," she kept repeating, unaware I was standing over her.

So this is how I lose Mom, I thought. I wondered what the remaining 10 days on the river - and the rest of my life - would be like.

The days following the accident were not easy. Grizzly bears were a constant threat, food rations were diminished, and Mom's health was not stable, either, having lost clothes to keep her warm and dry from the northern rain. The day we found the wolf tracks through are our camp, however, was when she was happy again.

I sat next to her in a folding chair on the beach by Walker Glacier. The wolves were howling, splitting the wild air in the midnight sunset. She passed me a flask of Grand Marnier, and together we stared into the nameless peaks that rose into the sky from under our feet.

Those weeks have mostly felt like an exhausting dream, far away, like a fading memory from a tough night of sleep. But a glazed clay wolf paw print as big as my hand hangs on the wall, reminding me of the fact that I have yet to wake up and that mythic beasts do exist out there in the woods.

Now, sitting on the edge of the Colorado River, I look into Mom's living face and see all that water - behind, ahead and all around - and remember that we're still in the thick of things.

I feel very lucky to have her here, as I admire the cold, flowing chaos and wonder what the future will bring.

"I wanted to take you to Hawaii when you graduated high school, but you picked Alaska," she reminds me, out of the blue, as if she'd heard every thought bubbling through my head.

It's really creepy how moms are like that.



Derek Franz would also like to give a shout to the other trip members: Jonathon Waterman, Michael and Steve Davis, and Michael Freeman. Derek can be reached at dfranz@postindependent.com or 384-9113.