The Forest Uncle

Uncle. This sounds outlandish, but I promise it's the truth. I've lived with my uncle Ty in his cabin since the age of six. He's always been an outdoorsy kind of guy. Where his cabin is located, it's relatively secluded with miles between him and his

neighbors, which may be why he taught me how to survive should I get lost at such a young age.

Well, at 11 there was a day that I will never forget.

It starts like this. I got lost.

Maybe he got a little too distracted playing with my handball

and wandered too far into the forest.

I felt scared looking around. All of it was just trees. Then I fell to my knees. That's when I heard a, hey, when looking up, there was a man standing in the clearing. Most probably would have freaked

down this situation but the guy looked and sounded exactly like my Uncle Ty.

However, there was an unnatural sense of peace as he smiled at me.

Carefully raising an arm, he proceeded to gesture over to a particular tree with a red ribbon tied

around its middle.

Time to head on home, little one.

Just follow the ribbons.

Uncle's been awfully worried about you.

At first I couldn't move, even when feeling a sense of safety, at least until he spoke

again. Go on now.

He's waiting for you.

His voice was strangely gentle and smooth as he encouraged me to leave.

In that moment I couldn't quite understand

why there wasn't the faintest hint of fear in me.

What I do know is that I felt compelled to obey his words.

...