A Call & A Text

The view from King's Peak.

We woke up to thunder boomers as only the mountains can throw them, echoing from peak to peak and reverberating down into the valleys.

 

Atticus has never been bothered by them and Will can't hear them so that's not a problem either.  Actually, I wasn't awakened by the storm, but by Atticus giving me the "Will Warning".  When Will gets out from under his covers and off of his bed, Atticus wakes me up to let me know I'd better get my old friend outside so he can go to the bathroom.  (And before you go thinking that this is kindness on Atticus's part, it could be many things, including enlightened self-interest - for he cannot understand why an animal would go to bathroom inside a house, especially his house.)

 

Duty done (by Will); breakfast eaten (by all three of us), the windows are all open for the first time in days.  The rain, with its ferocity and promise to last much of the day, is ushering out the humidity we've had sitting on top of us, and letting the last of the summer tourists know it's time to leave early.

 

While Route 16 and I-93 are choked by traffic today, we'll accept the refreshing feel to the air and the restful quiet in tiny Jackson. We'll also get ready to hike either tomorrow or Wednesday, the smaller peak we climb will depend on the weather forecast and how Atticus feels at the moment.  Nevertheless, we'll get to the top of something and that will make us both happy.

 

These next two months really are the best two months of hiking of the year and I look forward to walking through lush green corridors that in a few weeks’ time will have an explosion of color.  I'm giddy with the thought of the summit views down into the valleys with varying shades of red, yellow, and orange.  But this morning I'm thinking more about one higher peak, more brown than lush, and much higher than the peaks here in New England.  It's called King's Peak and it is the highest point in Utah, topping off at more than 13,000 feet in elevation.

Now I’ve haven’t been to Utah since the summer of 1969 when my father piled the seven youngest of his nine children (Joanne and John were already out in the world) into a new station wagon and he pulled a tent trailer across the country and back again for a month.  It was his way of getting us away from a house filled with memories and draped in sadness.  The previous December, six days before Christmas, my mother died in a Boston hospital.  To this day I think of it as perhaps one of the most courageous things a parent can do, to try to lift us all out of grief by shepherding seven children to places like Mammoth Cave (KY); Hot Springs (AR); Shamrock (TX); the Grand Canyon (AZ); Disneyland, LA, Yosemite, SF, the Redwood Forest, and the Big Sur (CA); Boulder Dam and Las Vegas (NV); Salt Lake City (UT); Yellowstone (WY); Mount Rushmore and the Black Hills (SD); and pretty much every stop in between before driving us back home.  Of course now I realize he also did it for himself.  Nevertheless, what a gift it was for all of us.  I was only eight at the time, the youngest in my family, and I vividly recall many of the sights, tastes, and sounds of that epic journey. 

But that time in Utah was long before we climbed mountains of any height.  Although we were active, we were mostly windshield tourists.  Someday, I tell myself, I’ll return to those places on my own road trip all these years later, but for now I am happy in these green peaks that have become our home.

So why is King’s Peak on my mind? 

It’s because the photograph above was sent to me the other day in a text.  It read, “On top of King’s Peak, reception bad…but beautiful.  How is Atticus?  I’ve been thinking of him the whole time.”  It was quickly followed by another: “Just found out from Meg that Atticus is doing great and I couldn’t be happier! Will touch base in a few days! :)” 

It’s not the first time I received a message from out west in the past ten days. The other came in the form of a telephone call wanting to know all about Atticus and how he was doing.  It was on the Saturday of the previous week, the day after Atticus’s second chemo treatment. 

Both the call and the text came from Rachael Kleidon, Atticus’s veterinarian at North Country Animal Hospital.  Later in the day of his chemo treatment, Rachael and her husband Bryant flew out to Colorado and were driving north to Utah to backpack through some high peaks on a long-planned two week vacation.  She called before she lost a signal with her iPhone upon entering the wilderness. 

Friends, albeit fewer and fewer of them, reach out to me and/or to Atticus to say, “I’m so sorry for what you are going through.”  They mean the cancer and the chemotherapy and the loss of his toe.  Or they say, “Poor guy.”  Or, “I’m sorry you have to go through this.”  I change the mood immediately but lifting it upward, even though I know they won’t understand. 

I’ve said it many times over the past two months: cancer, as strange as it may seem, has been a gift to us.  Its arrival forced us to focus on what’s most important and drop the silly things (and some people) who seem to rob us of what’s most important in life. 

My knees buckled and my heart ached when I first heard the dreaded word that begins with a “C”.  Fears ran through my veins like blood, only it was colder, and the ground beneath our feet shook.  Within hours though, the mourning and the fear was put away.  Our path was clear.  So not only did we throw out the self-pity and the “why me?” we also threw out a few people who use that as their mantra. 

Cancer has turned into another hike for us.  Each important occurrence – the first evaluation, the amputation, the biopsy results, the decision to go with chemotherapy, each three week cycle, and every weekly blood test, has turned into its own climb to a summit on a greater quest.  It’s a challenge and like all challenges it washes us clean, makes us stronger, and brings us closer. 

I don’t think the television has been on over the past couple of months.  Instead there’s music and good books and fresh fruits and vegetables and fires outside at night.  There’s sunsets and moonrises and laying on our backs watching owls, bats, bugs, and the heavenly stars above.  There’s no time for things that shouldn’t and don’t matter.  There’s also some new people in my life.

As I looked around our humble little home back when this first began, I saw what was essential, some items we just loved, and others that were nothing but clutter.  As harsh as it may seem, the clarity of cancer gave me the same view of the people in my life.  When faced with what’s most important, it made it easier to move on from those who were no longer important in our life and by sweeping our lives clean and tidying up a bit, it made room for those who are.  This is not something I may have done, at least not so quickly, without the gift of cancer. It serves as a wakeup call. 

One of those people we made more room for is Rachael Kleidon.  Seriously, who has a vet that calls on the second and eighth day of her vacation to a place where she wants to get away from it all with her husband two thousand miles away in a quiet mountain range and writes, “I’ve been thinking of him the entire time”? 

On the day Rachael called, it was to get me ready for what we needed to do if the blood work came back and showed me that the levels were not where we wanted them to be.  As always, we talked of the worst case scenario (she and I have a “no bullshit” agreement) so we could plan for it, and hope for the best.  She was preparing me because she knew she would be out of town for the next two times Atticus’ blood was drawn and she didn’t want me to hear such things from someone else. 

We are extremely blessed.

Looking now at Atticus, who is sitting on a chair at our kitchen table right next to me as I type, letting me know the rain has stopped and it’s time to go for a walk, it feels just like it does when we are on a long hike.  We’ve reached the latest summit together, taken time to rest, take in the views, and now it’s time to move onto the next.  It’s a long hike, after all.  There’s time to stop and pause, but there’s no use in stopping altogether.  Over the past eight years of hiking with Atticus, I’ve learned the key to these long quests is to be grateful for the view along the way and to keep moving, onward, by all means.

One of my favorite and most sensual writers is Marianne Williamson.  She writes: “Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are.”  That’s how I feel these days.  Cancer may have knocked on our door and walked into our home, but it came bearing gifts and I continue to find them hidden all over the place.