Loss

I keep losing people to the mountains.

This morning I skimmed a list of high profile climbers that we as a tribe lost in 2017. I had had the opportunity to meet about a quarter of them. It is an odd sense of gratitude and grief that filled me as I read it, having had the opportunity to know these beautiful courageous people, yet being struck again with losing them. This followed after being told yesterday morning that a friend had died earlier this week in an avalanche. It took the better part of the day before I slowed down enough for that information to fully register. When it did, a melancholy settled deep down in my depths.
The further I push into the world of mountain sports, the faster the list of the lost grows. This is, of course, a reality of life that we all deal with, not some exclusive badge bestowed upon those of us in mountain sports. People age, accidents happen, our time runs out. We die. The inevitable march to meet with Kharon. The roaring rush towards Valhalla. It is the inevitable end that we all face, but for the time being I find myself still on this side of the veil. Here with others, watching them grieve, and sitting staring out the window at a bright cold winter morning.

Loss puts life in perspective, it makes certain mundane worries and cares seem a lot less important, and it makes certain other experiences seem all the more important. In a world built on distraction, with a thousand things screaming for our attention, it is easy to find weeks and months vanishing. It is easy to live a life skimmed over, avoided, and rarely engaged with. This morning I was reminded of a post by Tim Urban, the author of ‘Wait but why?’. The post highlights just how little time we have left with our parents, how few books we might read in the coming years, how scarce the days remaining with friends. The time scales he paints makes the assumption we all get to live to being about ninety. That assumption seems to be a dangerous one to make when I look at my community, when I look at how old the people I am losing are. Greg was 36. Ueli was 40. Trevor was 27. For many in this tribe, their parents outlive them, a thing I have promised my mother to not put her through.

So what do I do with this mantle of grief? I have been adding deaths to lists held in my soul for a long time now. A reminder to sit and enjoy the coffee; to watch the steam rise on a cold morning; to not leave things unsaid; to embrace the few moments we have with people. My list acts as a reminder to me that life is worth living. Wildly. With gusto. With a demand to experience and dig in in every way that I can.

For now though, I sit, drinking cold coffee, staring at a bright cold morning.