Reflection on Seekers: My Story

Ellen's Story – Conquering fear

The stories of the women I interviewed provided me with a mirror that reflected back on my story and led me to re-write it for survivial. I had always been afraid yet Eva and Joan -- the Seekers -- reminded me of the ways that I stood up against fear.

As a child when I was afraid of the dark, which happened often, my parents would stay with me through the night never gently letting me know that I did not need to be afraid. I took this fear with me as I grew up and it paralyzed when my husband Ron became ill and ultimately died. Unlike me , my daughters Caitlin and Sarah responded to their father’s illness by developing their physical and survival skills. Both of them backpacked and hiked. They became raft guides and learned to save boats and passengers when a river unexpectedly turned them over. The two times I went with them, I fell overboard, unable to keep my balance. One of those times I remember hearing Caitlin yell, “Sarah you get the boat, and I’ll get Mom.” I wondered what would have happened to me if I didn’t have two daughters to save me.

Caitlin hiked in Siberia as part of an exchange program with Russian and U.S. youths. She went to British Columbia to write a travel guide and explored Indonesia on her own. Sarah, alone in the house with a nurse who didn’t know what to do when Ron’s alarms went off, saved her father’s life by reconnecting his tubes to the ventilator. At sixteen, as a junior lifeguard, she saw a small boy fall into the pool. She jumped into the water, pulled him out, and gave him CPR while the other senior lifeguard stood by the side of the pool frozen in fear. My daughters went out into the world to learn how to respond to danger. At fifty, I had to learn what they learned as teenagers.

When I was too depressed to make any decisions, I made a rule that if anyone asked me to do something I had to say “yes.” It was because of this rule that I found myself on my way to Katmandu to hike in the Himalayas with a small group of trekkers. Ron had been an ardent hiker. Before he died he told me that his only regret was that he had not spent more time in the mountains. My fears had gotten in his way. When asked to go on the trek to Nepal I said “yes,” thinking how much Ron would have wanted to go. I took the trek in homage to him. I was still afraid, but now with everything lost my fear didn’t seem to matter.

We were a group of seven. I only knew one other hiker well. We had two leaders, a handsome American named Jock and a flamboyant Nepali named Gumbu. They were our leaders for a twenty-two day hike to see the great mountains Jannu and Katchenjanga on the eastern border between Nepal and Sikkim, a route recently opened to foreign visitors. I shared a tent with a young woman named Kathleen who had a gleeful smile and deep laugh. She and I became the naughty kids on the trek with our messy tent and slow pace, but we grew close and helped each other make it up and back.

On our first day in Katmandu, we went to Pashupati, the Hindu Temple of the dying. We looked at the Temple from across the river, watching family members pray over their dying loved ones. Although sad, it felt comforting as I realized that I was not the only one in the world who was grieving.

The next day we took two small planes to get to Sukatar where the trek began. On our second day of hiking, one of our group had heart problems and had to be rushed back to Katmandu, but the rest of us kept on. The path was narrow and rocky. We walked across thin swinging rope bridges and hung on the side of the path overlooking an abyss where yaks ran down the mountain with no concern for us. Each morning, we awoke to find a Sherpa at the door of our tent with a small bowl of hot water and tea. The hot water was for Kathleen and me to share for washing. We giggled as we decided which part of us we would wash that day. Days for hair washing were particularly hilarious.

We walked for seven hours a day. The beauty around us was indescribable, especially the red rhododendron forests and the jagged mountains covered with snow. One afternoon I looked across at a peak on the other side of a ridge. I saw our guide Gumbu running along the path with his long white scarf blowing in the breeze. I felt as if I was being transported away from my grief. I had the sense that, as hard as it was to keep climbing, if I made it up the mountain and back I would survive, but I wasn’t sure that I would make it.

In the middle of the night, at 13,000 feet I woke up gasping for air. Kathleen went and found Jock who gave me altitude medicine, which worked to ease my breathing but left me dragging my way up the path one slow step at a time. Finally, we made it to our last camp near the base of Katchenjanga. We were above 16,000 feet. Once we turned back I knew that I would make it back down. I rarely had felt Ron’s presence since his death, but the day we began our descent I knew that he was with me. I was infused with love for him, for myself, and for life. I was ready to face whatever was next. I learned that to be a seeker I had to take on challenges even when I was afraid and to accept events over which I had no control. I am no longer afraid of the dark.