I met him at the saddle. He said he was watching me. He thought I’d catch him at any moment. He was in yellow, and I was wearing my signature Caribbean blue. His name was Johnny: Samaara and Johnny, I said. We began leaping-frogging to Mt Whitney’s summit. He caught me, and it was his turn to lead.
We could see the 1909 rock house tantalizing us on Whitney’s summit. I told him that I’m going to turn back. I knew I could reach the top. I just wasn’t so sure I could make it back from the top. And the top is just the halfway point. I was truly on emply. Emotionally. Mentally. Physically.
Sometimes a Conversation With a Stranger Changes Everything
Johnny looked at me and asked me my ‘why.’ I smiled and told him that would be a tear-filled answer. He said that was fine.
So, I told him about my split with Ard and that our dog got sick. I told him how Ard said Theo and I could stay in the house. And then one day, he called and told me to leave as he brought in replacement dogs. And I told Johnny how I loved my dog, and that he and I traveled the world together. I explained that Theo was my hiking partner and that when he got sick, he could no longer do that. Tears flooded my eyes when I said that I never wanted to spend one minute without Theo.
I told Johnny how I held him close to me as he took his last breath, less than 3 weeks earlier. I told Johnny about my 26 lifetime surgeries, my cancer diagnosis, and the recovery. And that it was always me and Theo. …And I cried.
When the tears stopped enough to speak, I asked him for his ‘why.’
Johnny said that two years earlier, he had a massive back surgery, and the doctors told him he would never walk again. Two years to the actual day, we were sharing our whys at 13,600 ft.
And one foot in front of the other, and 2.5 hours later, we both stood on the top of Mt Whitney.
Time Heals
Time and distance have passed since that conversation. But as I look back, my story starts there. On the summit of Mt. Whitney. Forty years before I met Johnny and stood on Whitney’s summit, I stood in that exact same place with my mom and brother. It was my first big mountain. I was 14. I have chased elusive summits all over the world. But unlike Whitney, which I’ve summited twice, I’ve never reached the top of any of the others.
It seems a bit trivial, but it’s everything. I gave up on myself at every opportunity because that is what I learned. And I also learned to run. But it never mattered how far I ran; my life always caught up with me.
Not this time. Because I am not running away. I’m running toward … toward a life I choose.
This is my story…
