blue mountain summers

TYLER ALWAYS ARRIVED at my rural acreage in northwest Colorado ready for adventure. “I can stay one whole week, Aunt Lou Dean!” he’d say with a big grin on his freckled face. I wasn’t really his aunt. His mom, Tammy, a good friend and a single parent, lived in Grand Junction, two hours away. Because she was on her own, I’d been in the delivery room to support her when Tyler was born. He seemed like family to me too.

I had pictures of Tyler when he was a toddler, playing with my dog Doubleday and sitting on my gelding. After Tyler started school, he visited for weekends here and there, and always for a week or two in the summer. He loved all my animals, the