Crossing the Ice

All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.
–Julian of Norwich

View from our camp on the Muir Snowfield with Mt. Adams in the distance.

An image of rugged glaciers is now seared into my mind’s eye. Our route passed through an other-worldly landscape of crevasses, immense ice canyons, and frozen sculptures of all imaginable shapes and impossible sizes.

We traversed Mt. Rainier’s steep slopes of snow and ice under the light of the full moon. I was transfixed by the magical, mesmerizing beauty of the stark terrain. And I was keenly aware of the dangers it offered on every side. Yet I did not feel especially afraid. When the way forward demands all of your mental and physical strength, it leaves little room for fear.

The ice is constantly moving and changing as it slowly marches down the mountain. It melts and refreezes. It forms steep pressure ridges. It breaks and shatters. It rebounds by building massive towers and swirling spires amid the craggy walls of icicled cliffs.

Gibraltar Rock towers above the Ingraham Glacier.

This world of ice is transient and temporary. The glaciers of Mt. Rainier are slowly but with surety approaching their own deaths. They could be gone in my lifetime or shortly after. Yet, even as they recede, their allure is dramatic and powerful. They are beautiful. They seem alive.

Most of the mountains I hiked this past year were shaped by glaciers. Long after they melted, the world still holds their footprints. And some day, who knows, maybe the glaciers will return. They have advanced and retreated many times before.

Climbers descending the Emmons Glacier above Disappointment Cleaver.

The ice is a paradox, temporary yet permanent, ever-changing even while frozen and still. It reflects our own existence–a reminder too that our entire planet, our universe, the living and the non-living, are threaded with this tension. All that we know, see, and touch is but a blink in the eyes of the infinite, while also timeless and profound.

Aren’t we so goddamned lucky to be aware of this blink? To feel, to love, to be alive, to grieve, to die, to suffer, to be born again… To take our perch on the mountain when it is our turn, and then to melt quietly into a new form, working our way back to the cosmic ocean from whence we came, when our moment has passed.

My rope-mates beginning their descent from the summit.

I risked losing myself–with Aubrey, with her cancer, and then finally, on these glaciers. I have felt deep pain and sorrow. I have agonized over the injustice of Aubrey’s suffering and lost years. At times, I have wanted to stop. But I have also watched the sun rise over the ice while looking out across hundreds of miles of mountains and forests. And I have shared a deep love with a good person.

The tragedy of an untimely death does not negate the beauty of a life well-lived. The pain we carry and the risks we take are but the price for each breath, for each heart beat.

When I could see the crater rim a few hundred yards away and I realized we were truly going to make the summit, I began to cry. I felt completely overwhelmed–my chest swelled with mourning and with joy, with yearning and with pride. I had crossed the glaciers.

Sitting on the summit after scattering the last of Aubrey’s ashes.

A Thousand, Painful Steps

From nothing cannot be born something. From no one cannot be born someone. From something you cannot become nothing. From someone you cannot become no one.
–Thich Nhat Hanh

Sunset at Lunch Counter on Mt. Adams with Mt. St. Helens in the distance.

Before Aubrey died, I never had much interest in climbing mountains. Since her death, I have hiked to the top of ten. Half I climbed with my friend Aaron, who–along with his wife Kelly–has been present before, during, and after Aubrey’s death.

This weekend we completed our hardest climb to date: Mt. Adams. Each step was painful. Much of the last 3,000 feet was on treacherous, icy snow. Our progress was slow, and the altitude made me feel woozy.

But we kept going.

The icy slope leading to the summit of Mt. Adams.

Climbing is a lot like grief. The way forward is difficult and sometimes excruciating. It is easy to be afraid. It is easy to feel like you won’t make it. It is easy to worry about all of the things that could go wrong.

You don’t get to the top of a mountain by being stronger or faster or better equipped. You get there by centering yourself, by stilling your mind, by focusing only on the single step in front of you. It is deciding, thousands of times over, to take one more.

When I think of the past year, it has been full of those moments. From the jungle in Guatemala, to the wildness of the Sierras, to the summit of Mt. Adams—I have been on a physical journey that mirrors the internal, spiritual journey of accepting death and accepting the continuance of life.

Aaron and I on the summit of Mt. Adams.

I have come a long way. During those first few months, I could barely get out of bed. At times, I wished I had been the one who died. Life felt so pointless, so empty. And now… I have started to date someone. I am applying for grad school. I notice myself laughing, relaxing, allowing myself to enjoy a good day again.

At moments, the steps forward have felt almost unbearable. I felt the universe was asking too much of me, that I could not go on. But each time I’ve managed to keep moving, I have somehow landed on solid ground despite my fears, despite my sorrow.

This journey is far from over. More grieving awaits. There will be more pain, more difficulties. But I have confidence that I can meet them–that my hardships will not overwhelm me. And I know these steps are also inseparable from joy and from finding healing.

In less than two weeks, Aaron and I will attempt the summit of Mt. Rainier. I am bringing the last of Aubrey’s ashes. I am nervous, a little scared even. But I am ready.

As I take each step, I have felt Aubrey’s presence. The more I dare to embrace life, the stronger I feel her with me. We think of grief as something that is horrible and awful. Parts are. But, at its core, grief is about letting go of our fears of death, separation, and loss.

It is about finding our way back to life and to a new connection with the people we have loved. It is about stepping through the pain and transcending our own mortality.

View of Mt. Rainier from Paradise earlier this month.

Reflections on the Anniversary of Aubrey’s Death

She delights in sickness and in health,
she delights in an early death,
she delights in old age,
she delights in the beginning,
she delights in the middle and the end.
–Second Book of the Tao

Mt. Banner at dusk.

The only way to bring Aubrey forward is to say yes to life in all of its wildness. The future will be far different from the past. Yet as we grow in life, we grow in love. When we risk opening our hearts wider, we connect the future with the past and bring healing to both.

View on the approach to Donahue Pass.

After Aubrey died I sometimes asked myself whether I would do it again now that I know all of the pain we would have to face together. My answer is always yes. If I could live an infinite number of lifetimes, I would choose to be Aubrey’s husband each time. Our society sometimes pretends pain and suffering can be avoided and that being comfortable is what matters most. But pain and discomfort can push us to new discoveries. Aubrey and I learned to lean into the pain. We learned to embrace it. And it rewarded us: it taught us to touch the sweetness at the core of life’s shortness.

Entering Yosemite via the Pacific Crest Trail.

My friend John Meyer planned the logistics for our backpacking trip to the Sierras. After a night and nearly two days of endless driving and hitching rides on buses and taxis, we arrived at a trailhead at the base of Mammoth Mountain in the Inyo National Forest. From there we hiked along the side of a ridge toward the high peaks that run north and south along the spine of the Sierras before crossing an 11,000-foot pass that led us across the eastern border of Yosemite National Park. We continued onward through canyons and valleys and across another high pass before we reached Yosemite Valley after more than 50 miles of walking through pristine wilderness. I lost count of the snow-capped peaks; the meadows full of wildflowers beginning to blossom; the stream crossings; the waterfalls of all shapes and sizes; the idyllic ponds and lakes; the forests of Ponderosas, Sequoias, and Cedars. Each mile brought new and stunning scenery.

One of countless waterfalls along the route to Yosemite Valley.

I kept thinking about how much Aubrey would have enjoyed this trek. I kept thinking about how she and I deserved a chance to hike these mountains together. And then a thought struck me as I rounded a bend with a snowy peak high above and a clear, blue-green lake far below me: perhaps John and I hadn’t chosen this journey at random. Perhaps somehow Aubrey had led us here. Perhaps she wanted us to experience this awful anniversary in a place that, without doubt, would have brought her amazement and joy.

Snow-capped peaks towering above the trail as we near the Valley floor.

I spent most of the anniversary trying not to relive the moment of Aubrey’s death. I have revisited that moment enough times over the past year. I preferred instead to remember her as she was before that day: animated, laughing and smiling, kind and tender as she listened to family and friends. The world needed Aubrey’s spirit, and it still does. Those of us who loved her can keep her alive in our hearts. We can still cherish the moments we feel her presence near.

Nevada Falls near Yosemite Valley.

I will always grieve Aubrey. I will always mourn her suffering and death. A part of me will forever be broken because our life together ended too quickly. But I refuse to dwell on her death. Aubrey loved life. She helped me to love life. The experience of life, rather than the memory of death, is what will keep me close to her. To honor Aubrey is to live, to embrace the life within and around me. I accept this grief and this loss, but I will not let it destroy what Aubrey valued most: the here, the now, this precious lifetime.

Hope Stay Firm

Because of charity and love, man should never allow death to rule one’s thoughts.
–Thomas Mann

Aubrey’s most heart-wrenching moment that I witnessed in our nearly eight years together occurred the day of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre. The pain and fear she felt over cancer and her own impending death never shook her as badly as the deaths and terror of that awful day. She could not comprehend such hate. She would be heartbroken again to know that a young student died this week in a mass shooting at her alma mater in Seattle.

Aubrey had no patience for conservatives who argued for guns at the expense of innocent lives. And it didn’t stop there. She had no patience for those who did not support gay rights, no patience for people who did not care about the poor, no patience for warmongers, no patience for those who didn’t appreciate feminism. In short, no patience for people who lacked compassion.

At one point before she died, she said: “I’m OK, but we have to help all the others in line.” I imagine her now running to the side of the dying, reaching for them, and helping them to experience the peace she felt in her final moments. It is our job to do the same for those who continue living. This is the only way I know to feel close to her now, the only way I know to feel like she and I can still be a team.

The anniversary is almost here. For the past two or three months, I have sometimes lost myself in remembrances of last spring. Some quality in the daylight will take me back to Aubrey’s side and the helplessness I felt as her life began to rush away from us like a swelling river tumbling down a long ravine. When your life’s partner quietly dies in your arms, you hold not only her death, but all death, all suffering, including your own. You understand in an instant what it means to be mortal, what it means to have an end. For a brief moment, the bullshit stops.

I plan to mark the anniversary somewhere in the high Sierras working my way down into Yosemite Valley. So far I have readied only one supply—a book of poems by Grace Paley, a poet from New York and Vermont. She completed the book at age 84 and died shortly after. When I pulled it off the shelf at Elliott Bay Bookstore, I opened straight to this page:

I called her phone rang four times
you can imagine my breath stopped then
there was a terrible telephonic noise
a voice saidthis number is no
longer in use how wonderful I
thought I can
call again they have not yet assigned
her number to another person despite
two years of absence due to death

A week ago, after yet another tragedy, I received several worried notes and phone calls about my plans to climb Mt. Rainier. I assured everyone who asked that we are taking a different route—one that is much less dangerous than the one that claimed the lives of the six climbers who disappeared.

But aren’t you afraid?

Yes. I am. I have always been afraid of climbing mountains. Yet that’s part of the point. I must learn to face my fears, not turn my back to them. How else can I honor a wife as brave as Aubrey? How else can I still believe in charity and love in a world that seems so empty of them at times? How else can I truly live while knowing so well that I too have an end?

Earlier this week, I had occasion to see the painting Tree of Hope, Keep Firm by Frida Kahlo. In part of the painting, she is lying on a hospital gurney, sick and bleeding, under a blazing sun. In the other half she is sitting upright, guarding her sicker self, and holding a flag emblazoned with the motto that gives the painting its title. A dark night surrounds her chair, and her face is set with determination as she clings to her flag. The portrait instantly took me back to every single hour we spent in hospitals.

For those who will soon be joining together to walk in the Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon—we walk not just to remember an anniversary and not just to remember Aubrey. We walk out of hope—hope that Aubrey and the others we have lost this year live on, hope that we who are still here can find healing, hope that our fears do not have the last word.

Why We Make Vows

I hope that, whether our lives are long or whether they are short, we will feel grateful for each day that we share as husband and wife.
–From a list of wishes Aubrey and I wrote for our wedding day, which my friend Andrea read aloud as part of our ceremony.

When you lose love, no matter the circumstances, you break. For a while, life has no wind in its lungs. You are too haunted, too weak to know how to love again.

Yet love continues. It finds the willing who are strong and ready. It finds the ones with courage. It nudges them forward and they become a reminder that healing is possible.

Tomorrow I will officiate the wedding of Andrea Lehner and Dustin Snyder. I have known Andrea for more than a decade now. We went through hell and good times together in Niger, and hell and good times in Seattle. When I think about her and Dustin making the same pledge to each other that Aubrey and I made, I feel hope.

We are a small part of something bigger than ourselves–a force that we each carry when we are able and that others carry for us when we are not. I often wonder where Aubrey is now. As I prepare for this ceremony, I find her in the words to be shared by good friends who aren’t afraid to say they will love each other for as long as possible.

Living Again

From the very beginning when they told me I was blind, I just tried to stay busy and pursue the dreams that I’ve always dreamt. One of them is to see the world.
–Steve Baskis, who lost his vision after a roadside bomb destroyed his vehicle while on tour with the Army in Iraq. In 2010, he climbed a 20,000-foot peak in Nepal with 10 other wounded veterans. He has since climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro and Yosemite’s Half Dome.

Yesterday marked 10 months. I had dinner with a friend who had good news to share–something that would have thrilled Aubrey. In that moment, I was reminded that the best way to honor Aubrey is to love life, our friends, and myself the way that she did.

I learned Steve Baskis’ story a couple of weeks ago. The bomb that blinded him also killed one of his close friends. His friend’s body shielded him from the worst of the shrapnel, allowing him to live. He wrestles with survivor’s guilt as well as the day-to-day frustrations of no longer being able to see–frustrations that, in some ways, parallel the angst Aubrey felt about losing her mobility and facing her mortality. Steve has never seen his own wife’s face because they met after he was blinded. He may never know what she looks like–instead, he knows her only by touch and the sound of her voice.

Before she died Aubrey told me that three days belonged to her: her birthday, our wedding anniversary, and the anniversary of her death. This year, I spent the first of those three days in Guatemala. Next up is the anniversary of her death. I am going with a friend to California to spend five days trekking through the Sierras and into Yosemite Valley before returning to Seattle to walk in the Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon with about 20 family and friends who wish to remember Aubrey’s completion of the race two summers ago. I feel Aubrey’s memory urging me back out into the world, her voice telling me to be brave.

On Tuesday, I was listening to KEXP when a request came in from a guy who was having a bad day at work and worried about his fiancé, who is fighting cancer. I could instantly imagine what he was feeling, and my heart broke. No one should have to deal with cancer—whether as a patient or a family member helping to care for someone with cancer. It is hell. But I hope he hangs in there, I hope he keeps going, I hope he and his fiancé find joy and meaning despite the many difficulties and uncertainties they face. We have to keep going. We still have dreams.

Climbing a Free-Fall

We could not fear too greatly for the end of love when we are the proof of its continuation.
–Molly Fumia

Even now, nine months later, I am bewildered by Aubrey’s absence. At moments, life seems stripped of all meaning. The life I planned is over. I am free-falling toward the unknown.

I put all of my hope into the still voice within, the one that, every once in a great while, pipes up and says, “Go this way.” It is the same voice that led me through her final days and then convinced me to fly a gospel choir to Seattle for her memorial. It doesn’t always make sense at the outset, yet it seems to know what it is doing. So I trust it. And for good reason: I either trust it, or I continue falling into the unknown without hope.

Last August when we were leaving the meadow where we had left Aubrey’s ashes at Mt. Rainier, I heard that voice: “You’re not done here.” As I looked up toward the summit, I heard a second voice, Aubrey’s. It was a memory of something I had heard her tell me several times after the cancer and treatment paralyzed her leg: “I always assumed that someday I would climb Rainier.”

I’m now part of a four-person team planning an ascent on August 4. That day happens to be the anniversary of the afternoon her family and I scattered her ashes there. I have one last, small handful of ashes that I have saved for the summit so that she can experience it too. If our roles had been reversed, if I had grown up wanting to climb Rainier, if I had died… I know that Aubrey would carry me the same way I hope to carry her. We loved each other, and that’s what love does. It doesn’t stop, even when all else does.

Guatemala, Part III: La Vuelta a Casa

I couldn’t bear to be the only one left. I actually wanted to die. These are things which happen to you as they do any human being. But we face them and bear them.”
–Rigoberta Menchú

The decorated tomb of a young child. San Benito, El Petén.

We walked somewhere between 65 and 75 miles to get from Carmelita to El Mirador and back. Most of it was difficult hiking. We either traversed through deep mud or followed Miguel and Lucila through rambling, overgrown side paths and shortcuts in order to avoid the worst of the mud. At times, Miguel carved out new paths with his machete. Combined with touring the temples at El Mirador and Tikal we probably walked more than 80 miles in six days—an average of a half marathon per day. By the time we returned to Carmelita we could barely move our limbs. We emerged from the forest with our skin blanketed in bites, scratches, sweat, and mud.

What exactly did we need to prove? For me, I was trying to show myself that I am still alive and that it is OK for me to be so. When you care for someone you love as they die, you commune with death. You reach across to that other world, and you become intensely aware of its existence. As you do, you lose your grip on the world of the living. Work, relationships, caring for your home and yourself—it all disappears into a thick fog. You can try, as I have done, to will your way back to normalcy, but running faster will not lift the fog. To make your way back to the land of the living, you must first embrace your journey with death. The trek and the trip as a whole were a meditation on my own communion with death. At every turn, I found the mysticism of Guatemala—whether ancient Mayan or present-day Catholic—helping to guide my course back home.

I know I am far from being healed from the pain of Aubrey’s death. Indeed, some of that pain will never heal. But with each mile I’ve crossed, I have shed a layer of sadness and exchanged it for a small measure of that promise we felt six years ago. And with each exchange, I have felt Aubrey’s presence. I am humbled again by my wife. As she lay dying, she knew I needed this trip. Her last wish, it turns out, was a wish for my peace.

As we rode out of Carmelita in that same beat-up Toyota pick-up and the sun began to set as we journeyed out of the forest lands of the north, I watched my fourth consecutive breathtaking sunset. I watched the sky changing colors as it cast its waning light on the fields alongside the unpaved road. I found myself struck by a thought: We don’t cry over the sun each time it sets because we know that, when it is time, we will see it rise again. I know Aubrey is still out there somewhere and that goodbye forever in the way we once knew each other in this world is really only goodbye for now. You see this same belief reflected in the culture of Guatemala. I remember walking into a Mayan church six years ago. The interior was clouded from incense smoke, and candles burned at various stations where women huddled in prayer. On this trip I noticed the care people took to decorate the colorful graves of their loved ones each time we passed a cemetery. These are all simple offerings made to ease the pain of separation, to encourage healing, and to hold on to the hope that we will one day find our way back to the ones we love even if we do not now understand how.

Luis Alberto Coc Gonzalez, a funeral director and mortician at the Alfa & Omega Funeral Home, San Benito, El Petén.

Due to our flight schedules, Scott and I had to spend the last night of our trip in Guatemala City. Aubrey and I had avoided staying there because it is dangerous. Scott and I stayed at a boutique hotel in an old house in the historic district. The hotel itself was beautiful—full of antique furniture, folk art, Mayan masks, and ancient artifacts. The main hallway opened onto a small, plant-filled outdoor patio in the center of the house. When we first arrived, the entire house was refreshingly cool from the nighttime air of the mountains. The courteous proprietor made a great fuss over welcoming us. Within minutes, cold beer and warm food appeared in front of us.

Outside the hotel we found a different story. The historic district is in disrepair. Strict zoning laws make it almost impossible for homeowners to maintain and repair their homes. Many homes are abandoned. The cynical side of me wonders whether government officials are purposefully waiting for the old homes to crumble so that they can profit from turning the neighborhood over to developers who dream of high rises and shopping malls full of chain stores and fast-food shops. We saw more than a few examples of this process at work. Many of the retails shops are American companies or Latin-American knock-offs of their American counterparts.

The entire city feels gritty and unsafe. On our ride to the hotel we passed through a couple of blocks of particularly seedy bars and brothels with tough-looking crowds milling about the intersections. Over dinner and again over breakfast we heard repeated blasts from what sounded suspiciously like shotguns. A few were not far away. Each time we chuckled and tried to convince ourselves that they were only fireworks while simultaneously wondering whether we would make it back to the airport without being robbed.

Luis with his boss Manolo Soza Salinas demonstrating how they prepare bodies for burial. Luis has assisted with 2,725 funerals during his first 13 years as a mortician. He told us that all but 115 of the deceased were youth between the ages of 12 and 20. The majority died from violence–much of it gang-related.

A Swiss doctoral student joined us for breakfast. She is writing about peasant groups throughout Central America and how they mobilize to help the poor. We bombarded her with questions about the politics of Guatemala. We were not surprised to hear that the conservatives still have enormous control over the national government. We saw their propaganda in towns all over the country—even in places where conservatives are not wanted or welcomed. Forty years of an on-and-off civil war do not seem to have affected the power structure much. The fighting and the politics are in part racially motivated. The indiscriminate killing of indigenous Americans did not end on the Great Plains during the 1800s. It has continued in places like Guatemala throughout the 20th century and into the present day—often with encouragement from our own government. Today many of the disenfranchised men and youth are involved in drugs and gangs.

A gun store in Guatemala City.

We ventured out after breakfast to see the district’s central plaza and the grand Catedral Metropolitana, which were a few blocks from our hotel. We were rattled by the ugly buildings surrounding the plaza and by the faces of people who looked like they passed through life having to be too guarded and wise. After the excitement of El Mirador, I once again felt depressed. How could such an amazing journey end on such a sad note? Where had I left the ashes of my wife and lover? How can you have hope in a world so full of problems and cruelty?

We strolled through the plaza searching for some redemptive sign of life and beauty. We saw a few furtive signs: children playing, women proudly sporting their traditional clothes, men selling fresh pineapples and oranges. But these signs did not dislodge the overall atmosphere of frailty and misery. We slowly ambled toward the cathedral. A mass was underway inside. I walked into the back of the church and was immediately struck by its impressive grandeur. I was surprised to find it crowded with people filling rows and rows of pews that must have stretched half a football field in length. When they rose to sing I began to cry. You could feel the soul of the place in their quiet but steady voices rising in unison. The voices sounded too knowing of the ugly side of life, yet they still held onto life and meaning. It is not unlike the way Aubrey lived in the face of cancer and ultimately death. I was leaving a part of both of us in a place where hard-won healing and hope still exist amid great pain.

Banners from a 10-kilometer run in Guatemala City. The run promoted an end to violence, calling for 24 hours without homicides.

Our journey back to Seattle was a long one. We traveled by foot, by truck, by small plane, by jet. When I think back on our return trip, one moment stands out in particular. On our next to last day, we boarded the plane for the flight from El Petén back to Guatemala City at dusk. I found myself sitting alone behind a young couple from Europe who were obviously in love. They had spent the day in Tikal and were now cuddling and flirting, so in love they were powerless to stop themselves from touching each other. I thought of the trip to Tikal that Aubrey and I had been too poor to make, and the empty seat next to me underscored the sharp difference between my life and this couple’s. For a moment, I felt the part of the pathetic widower.

As the flight went on, I felt my sadness softening. By the time we banked into a steep turn toward the runway to land, I realized that deep suffering creates deep hope for peace. You don’t want others to experience the pain you have known, and you become more aware of other suffering that exists alongside your own. You begin to wish, more than anything, for a world free from its infinite tragedies. As I looked out my window and watched the full moon shining on the wing and the mountains and city below, I found myself hoping that the couple in front of me would enjoy decades together and that their lives would be full of happiness and shared joy. I glanced at them again. The guy was leaning over the girl, lifting his camera above the seats and trying to snap a picture of the runway lights in the distance in front of the cockpit. He was being sure to press against her as he did. I couldn’t help but smile to myself at the clumsiness of their desire. I wished them peace.

Inside the Catedral Metropolitana, Guatemala City.

Photos by Scott Squire.

Guatemala, Part II: La Muerta

My true search at the temple or in my
idol fancy is Thee and only Thee!
Thou art my only search; temple or
vineyard is mere pretext!
—Hafez

Taking off from Guatemala City for El Petén.

As much as grief is about letting to, it is also about opening yourself to a new life and new possibilities. It is difficult to accept that life must continue and that it will be forever different, but making peace with this fact is a necessity. With this thought at the forefront of my mind, Scott and I left Lake Atitlán and headed for El Petén, the northernmost state of Guatemala.

Owing to a communication mix-up, we had to change drivers and cars in the city of Antigua. The new driver was from Antigua. His name was Esteban. He was an older man, but wiry and slim, extremely fit, energetic, and with a full mop of salt and pepper hair. He was having a fun time showing us as much as we could see of his city in the two hours we were there. Over lunch we learned that he had once been a national boxing champion. Today, in addition to working as a driver, he teaches boxing to youth. His nickname: El Tornado Antigueño, “The Antiguan Tornado.” He pummeled the air above our table with his fists as he explained how he earned the name for his ruthless speed.

As we talked and ate, I mentioned having visited Antigua once before with my wife. I wasn’t aware of it, but Scott had already told him about Aubrey and her death. When I made my own reference to Aubrey, Esteban looked at me, his eyes welling with tears, and told me that a year and a half ago his own wife had also died. He had been away working in Guatemala City at the time, and his friends and relatives weren’t able to get news to him in time for him to say goodbye to her before she passed. I could tell by the sound of his voice that they had been very happy together. In fact, the restaurant he had taken us to for lunch was a special place where he had once enjoyed taking her on dates. They had three children—one a teenager and the others now adults. Esteban said they were all having a difficult time with their grief. He was so depressed that he hadn’t been able to work for a whole year and was only now beginning again. As we finished lunch and began to leave, I reached across the table to shake his hand and to thank him for sharing his story. He clasped both his hands around mine, looking at my intently with the knowing face I’ve only seen from others who are widowed. “Es muy duro,” he said.

El Tornado Antigueño

The day after we arrived in El Petén, we boarded a shiny tourist bus for a ride to Tikal National Park to see the famous Mayan ruins there. I was heavy with sadness as we began the trip to Tikal. I had envisioned my depression lifting after we scattered Aubrey’s ashes and began the second leg of our trip. But grief is not so simple. Aubrey and I had wanted to visit Tikal together on our first trip, but we were too poor at the time to justify the extra costs. Our entry-level salaries working for nonprofit arts organizations made spending another thousand bucks to get there and back seem far too extravagant. So we kept our itinerary to Lake Atitlán and Antigua and still managed to have an amazing time. As Scott and I arrived in the park, all I could think about was how much I wished Aubrey and I had gone to Tikal despite the expense.

A steady rain fell and gradually soaked our clothes through as we walked among the ruins. The rain didn’t help my spirits. Yet it was difficult not to be impressed by the ancient city. At its peak, 100,000 people lived in Tikal. They had cut down most of the forest surrounding it, so it was vastly different from today. It was a bustling metropolis ringed by maize fields. The city center was a grid of paved roads, artificial lakes, and the large limestone temples and palaces that we can still see. Today the jungle has reclaimed much of Tikal, and with the exception of tourists and park workers, humans haven’t lived here for more than a thousand years.

By the time we reached the city’s Grand Plaza, the rain had stopped and the sky was beginning to clear. Dozens of different types of tropical birds emerged from their hiding spots and struck up an impromptu concert. I spotted a couple of large green parrots in the top of a nearby tree from one of the palaces Scott and I explored. In the end, I felt fortunate to return to Guatemala to see this place. I know that Aubrey asked me to return in part so that I could make a new beginning and experience Guatemala in a different way, adding a new layer to the experiences she and I had shared.

A woman in our tour group poses in front of one of the pyramids of Tikal.

The next morning Scott and I were up at 5 am and waiting in the hotel lobby with our bags ready to go an hour later. A beat-up Toyota pick-up truck with 33-inch tires and a fresh coat of mud stopped jerkily outside the front door. A rough-looking guy got out and walked inside. He quietly asked the front desk clerk for the two people who wanted to go to El Mirador. That was us. We were getting a lift on the road less traveled.

It was a bone-jarring three-hour drive, mostly on mud-filled unpaved roads past rural farms and forest-turned cattle ranches, from our hotel to the small village of Carmelita, on the edge of the Mayan Biosphere Reserve, which stretches across the northern edge of El Petén. Our plan was to walk from Carmelita through the forest almost to the border of Mexico so that we could see the ruins of El Mirador, another site almost as impressive as Tikal but only accessible by traveling on foot or by mule. Carmelita itself looks like a threadbare shirt hanging onto the end of a forgotten clothesline. The road peters out there, and the jungle takes over. A few steps beyond the rough-and-tumble buildings, and you are in jaguar country. Arriving there feels like you’ve hit nowhere. We stopped at a small building where our guides were preparing mules to carry five days’ worth of food and water and camping supplies. Miguel Angel Caal, a tiny man clad in jeans and rubber mud boots with a machete always tied to his belt was our guide. His wife Lucila would be our cook, and their friend Ramon was in charge of the mules. Within an hour the five us disappeared into the jungle. Two days in, a day at El Mirador, two days out.

The road to Carmelita.

The first day we walked somewhere between 20 and 30 kilometers—almost all of it through ankle-deep mud and water. Late and heavy rains had turned the trail, much of which is an ancient Mayan highway, into a swamp. Miguel loaned us each a pair of ill-fitting mud boots. The mud, however, was so thick that my foot would sometimes disappear into the muck and come back up wearing only a sock. As we crossed one of the many bogs where the water often rose halfway up our shins, I swamped one of my boots and spent the rest of the day with wet feet. By the time we reached our first campsite, both legs of my khaki pants had turned black with mud. It was dark before we finished walking. We camped among the ruins of another ancient Mayan city. We had walked right past a sizeable pyramid earlier in the evening but hadn’t noticed it in the darkness. Scott and I sat exhausted, almost unable to move, while Miguel and Ramon set up our tents and Lucila made our dinner. They had worked just as hard as we had all day, but they kept going while we slumped into a tired mess.

During the night I dreamed of Aubrey. I could see and feel the fear she felt about cancer and death. At one point in my dream she and I were watching a movie together, and I turned it off because we were tired. She got upset and asked me to turn it back on or put on a new movie. I realized that stopping the movie early was a metaphor for her life ending too soon. I can still see the look of fear on her face from that dream. Scott and I both woke up after my dream. He was having strange dreams too. We told each other about them, and I added how I wished I could talk with Aubrey face-to-face to find out how she was doing on the other side because I needed to know that she was OK and comfortable. When I fell back asleep I dreamed I was holding my iPhone as it rang, but the screen was blank. I couldn’t see who calling me, and I didn’t know how to answer.

Washing some of the mud off in a stream while taking a break with Miguel.

By 8 am the next morning we broke camp and rolled out. We had another 30 kilometers to cover that day before reaching El Mirador. The trail gradually got better. By mid-day we were able to change out of the mud boots and into more comfortable shoes. We were enjoying the sights and sounds of the jungle. We found fresh puma tracks in the mud, had our third sighting of monkeys overhead, spotted relatives of tucans, and saw the most amazing golden and purple butterfly either of us had ever seen as we reached the border of El Mirador. By late afternoon, however, our bodies were giving out. Each step was painful and took concentration.

After Aubrey died I often found myself walking Alki Beach late at night. After two or three weeks I decided to try my route on a longboard. As soon as I got my technique down, I was hooked. It’s simple: move forward, don’t fall down, enjoy the view. In grief, these three thoughts are the only ones that come naturally. Being at work, trying to be social, taking care of Aubrey’s stuff, figuring out what to do with my life—it’s all exhausting and takes almost more effort than I can bear. My mind and emotions are wrecked. But moving forward, trying not to fall down, and taking in the view—I can handle these three. Focusing on them gives my heart and tired brain a break. Hiking—something else I’ve begun to do a lot of since Aubrey died—is similar. Any physical pain caused by pushing myself on a trail is nothing compared to the torment I’ve experienced with Aubrey’s cancer and death. In some ways I welcome the pain as a distraction.

Almost nine hours after breaking camp we arrived at El Mirador. Late in the afternoon Scott and I struck out for a large pyramid near our campsite so that we could watch the sunset from on top. We neglected to tell Miguel, who panicked and went running after us a few minutes later. We were doing exactly what he feared: Not knowing about the path with stairs to the top of the pyramid, we scrambled up one of the unexcavated sides. We pulled ourselves up by the trunks of small trees and did our best not to kick loose any of the limestone bricks or to tumble over backward down the steep side. Thick shrubs and brambles ringed the top. We simply plowed our way through them by cussing and scratching our arms to hell. We surprised two Chileans, their friend from Guatemala City, and a guide who were sitting quietly on the peak. They had made the trek by mule and camped near us in the evenings. They had taken the stairs up and thought Scott and I had gone mad. A few minutes later up came Miguel through the brambles. He gave us a lecture about running off on our own. He was right. We were probably lucky not to have gotten lost, fallen off the pyramid, or gotten bit by a snake.

After a round of photographing ourselves on top of the pyramid, we sat down for a spectacular view of the sunset. Dragon flies skittered all around us and as far as we could see in every direction lay dark green, unbroken forest. Not even a cell phone tower littered the horizon. We saw no trace of other people except for the pyramid beneath us. A smattering of tropical clouds hung from an otherwise open and endless sky. The colors changed quickly yet subtly as the sun sank behind a bank of clouds on the horizon. As we watched the sky grow dark I could hear the wings of a hummingbird flittering near a flower a few feet to my right. For a moment I was overwhelmed by the beauty of our world. I realized in that instant that grief is not only about death; it is also embracing the painful rebirth of a heart that still beats.

We spent February 12, Aubrey’s birthday, touring El Mirador. We started the day by hiking out to Danta, a temple for the god of the jungle. Danta is the world’s largest pyramid by volume. It rises almost 80 meters from the natural floor of the forest. From its precipice we could see the neighboring ancient city of Nakbe as well as the tops of the pyramids of Tintal, where we had camped the night before. We also visited three other temples in El Mirador’s center: one for the sun god, one for the rain god, and another for the god of maize. From the top of the latter, we spotted a new rainbow climbing its way out of the center of Danta in the late afternoon sun. We saw three species of monkeys, a pair of tucans, and a fox. We even woke up to a group of parakeets fighting on the roof of our tent. We also explored ancient facades with stunning sculptures of Mayan figures and animals and stellas, one of which featured a picture of several inter-twined snakes, with the good snakes swallowing their evil counterparts.

We ended the day on top of the same pyramid we had climbed to watch the sunset the day before. The second sunset was every bit as spectacular. In addition to the sounds of birds and insects, the canopy below us echoed with the eerie cries of howler monkeys. Small rain showers moved across the forest behind us as we sat facing the sinking sun. When it disappeared behind a bank of clouds, its light outlined the edge of the clouds with a crisp orange stencil. The clouds themselves cast shadows upward into the bright rays above them, creating a curtain of sky with bright oranges and dark purples seamlessly woven together like a splendid textile. The moment the sun itself disappeared, a team of squawking parrots flew through the tops of the trees at the base of the pyramid. It was a rare, perfect day. I couldn’t help but think Aubrey had an artful hand in its drama and wonder.

A quiet moment at the top of Danta, one of the world’s largest pyramids.

The next day we got up in the dark to begin the long journey back to Carmelita. Miguel and Ramon were busy loading the mules at first light when a howler monkey began shouting from a tree above them. I do not know how to describe its harrowing sound. It is like the hinges of the gates of hell swinging open while the wales of demons echo from within. Miguel assured us that despite their terrifying racket, howler monkeys are actually docile creatures.

Shortly into our return trek we stopped at one final site on the outskirts of El Mirador. Known as La Muerta, it features a small pyramid next to an ancient mortuary. We could enter the mortuary through a small side door that led down into the rooms beneath the main structure. We stepped into a dark and narrow foyer with an arched ceiling. The foyer connected to another larger room, deeper inside the structure via a small hallway that we had to crawl through on our hands and knees. This second room, which was almost pitch black inside, is where the morticians stored and prepared bodies for burial. Its only source of light is a tiny opening in a side wall that only allows light in for a few minutes early in the day when the sun is at a particular angle. Miguel crawled through the hallway first, and I followed. I soon realized that I was crawling across a floor covered in bat shit. When I stepped into the other room and shined my headlamp inside, I was aghast to see two or three dozen bats hanging onto the walls and ceilings. We were waking them up with our noise and two or three began swooping past Miguel’s head. I yelped and quickly backed my way back into the hallway and peddled backward into the foyer while Scott and Miguel laughed at me. Eventually we all three made it back into the room with the bats as more began to wake up and swoop down from their perches. I felt a pair of wings brush against the back of my arm. That’s when Miguel told us they were vampire bats (yes, those are real).

A vampire bat flying toward us.

Even though the site is a mortuary, its name has nothing to do with the Mayans. Before the discovery of El Mirador a little more than three decades ago and the subsequent declaration that all of the north of El Petén would be a reserve for nature and archaeology, Carmelita was a different place. Speculators would hire laborers, many of them from across the border in Mexico, to work in the forests to harvest wood and to collect sap from the chewing gum tree, which is common in the forests of El Petén. The town is named for the daughter of one of these speculators. The laborers would work in the forests for two or three months or more at a time while their families lived in town. The town had a bodega that would serve the laborers and host dances when they returned. It also had a police station with a large drunk tank reserved for revelers who got out of hand. Neither are there now, and there are few signs today that the town was ever lively. The main money-maker today is taking adventurers out to see the ruins, but there are not enough of us to make up the difference from the days when people used the forests more aggressively.

During that period—about 40 or 45 years ago—a woman traveled out to the forests near El Mirador to work as the camp cook for a group of laborers. Lucila told us her story as we marched through the jungle. The woman was young, about 20, and pregnant with her first child. While the workers were out collecting sap she went into labor prematurely. The birthing wasn’t going well, and she struggled to stay alive. When the workers returned both she and the baby were almost dead. They could do nothing to help her except wait for her agony to end so that they could bury her in the forest with her child. She now rests near the hill with the ancient mortuary. When I think of this story, or the story of El Tornado Antigueño, or the many untimely deaths I experienced as a volunteer in Niger, I am reminded that Aubrey’s and my story is not so unique. Death is everywhere, and it comes to the young as well as the old. Death is simply part of life.

Miguel leading his mule past the skull of another mule on the return trek.

Photos by Scott Squire.

Guatemala, Part I: Las Cenizas

He who burns his own granary knows where ashes are expensive.
–West African proverb

Sitting alone at one of the tables at Arca de Noe where six years ago Aubrey and I shared breakfast together.

I left for Guatemala on the afternoon of February 4 with my good friend Scott Squire. We traveled for almost 24 hours straight to get from Seattle to the dock of the Arca de Noe hotel on Lake Atitlán. The route was a collage of airport lounges, a long red eye flight from Los Angeles to Guatemala City, and an endless ride up into the mountains toward the lake. Shortly into the drive, we encountered a bus strike that closed the main highway for half a day. We spent four hours camped out at a gas station with dozens of other travelers as we waited for the strikers to move on. We felt relief once we finally found ourselves sitting inside one of the small boats that serve as taxis around the lake. As the boat cast off from the rickety wooden pier and nosed around toward our final destination we were immediately overcome by the mystical beauty of the lake and the steep hills that surround it. The bright tropical sun showering the tops of the waves provided a sharp contrast to the dark water, hazy sky, and blue-hued volcanoes towering above us.

I had the strange feeling of being completely lost in an intimately familiar place. In some ways Lake Atitlán is where Aubrey and I became a real couple, something more than only two people dating. In these rustic boats, looking up at this same view, we had also looked at each other again, and we found a feeling of home. We began to recognize that we could find joy anywhere in this world, so long as we traveled it together.

Returning to the lake without her felt, at first, like fumbling my way through a nightmare. The thought of leaving her ashes behind without me remaining physically near them felt like a betrayal of the spirit of that first trip. But this is what she wanted, and I know she wanted it for me as much as for her. I have begun to accept the fact that Aubrey wants me to continue on with my life. What we had was special, and our love, in its own way, is eternal. Carrying on doesn’t diminish what we shared or lessen the bond between us, now or then. Yet those first moments of letting go are so intensely hard. I imagine it is not unlike the feeling of jumping out of a plane while nervous about whether you packed your parachute correctly.

Water taxis at the dock for Santa Cruz, Lake Atitlan.

The last thing I did before leaving was to take off my wedding ring. It took my several minutes. I kept touching it and then stopping, pulling at it, and then pushing it on even tighter. Finally I closed my eyes and tugged hard until I felt it slip off. I put it in a safe place with her rings. I plan to have all three added to our framed wedding pictures. It is all beautiful and right and good and another step in this process, etc., etc. Yet there is something equally awful and heart-wrenching about knowing I may never wear it again. I was always proud to wear it. It was a symbol of us. It felt like an extension of myself, like a living part of me. And, just like that, with one quick and solid tug, it’s freed from my hand. Just like letting go of her ashes, the last of her body, which I will never hold again. Letting them fall to the ground in a place that, however sacred, I do not know whether I will ever return.

Though it is as not as damning as losing your wife, I felt a similar finality when I left Peace Corps. As I said goodbyes to villagers, neighbors, staff, and even some of my fellow volunteers, I knew that, in most cases, these goodbyes were forever. I left Niger with deep sadness. I pledged someday to return. But in the eight and a half years since leaving, life has been full of distractions. Meanwhile, for a host of reasons that were beginning to converge while I was there, Niger has become a more dangerous place than it was a decade ago. I wonder now whether I will ever return. The three and a half years I spent there feel, at times, like a strange dream. I am left wondering what did it all mean? Did I make a difference? Does it matter that I ever went? I am terrified that my marriage will also someday take on this same dream-like quality and that the reality of it will slowly slip away, inaccessible and too far away to see and know clearly despite how intertwined it was with my soul on the many days past when Aubrey and I started each day waking up next to one another.

Survivor’s guilt as a particularly nagging part of grief. A part of me feels responsible for Aubrey’s death. If only I had asked the doctors more questions; if only we had done x, y, and z differently; if only I’d been more vigilant about her symptoms; if only I’d recognized that she was too tired to travel during our last Christmas together; if only, if only, if only…. It is an endless list. I can’t quite admit to myself that this disease was beyond our control and nobody’s fault. If I could pinpoint what went wrong, I could identify the problem, problems can be fixed, if I could fix the problem… I could bring her back. It is shit logic. But the world of grief and dying isn’t about logic. It is trying to come to terms emotionally with the frightening reality that there is no cause, there is no problem to fix, there is no undoing what is done. There are only the moments that we share together until they have passed.

During the first few months I found it too painful to think back to the many good times we experienced. Thinking of our happiness only made the sharpness of our separation more acute. I found it easier by far to indulge in my survivor’s guilt and to dwell for a while on my mistakes. Perhaps it is a form of trying to bargain with God. If I promise to be better, perhaps I will get a second chance. Perhaps if I could replace all my short-tempered afternoons, Aubrey would appear again, if only for a few minutes, for a peaceful visit. In time this torturous game gives way to greater acceptance. The reward for this transition is a gradual return of the sweeter memories. Eventually they bring more comfort than pain.

My one lingering regret is that I wish I had been a less fretful companion. I was preoccupied with worries. I fretted over Aubrey’s health, over the state of our relationship, over money, over whether I was doing enough to help her, over what would happen next. What was I so afraid of? That Aubrey would die? That our relationship would end? My fears were powerless at stopping the inevitable. Rather, they only served to chip away at what we still held intact: today, ourselves, each other.

Aubrey was to her core a positive and encouraging person. She did not let fear overwhelm her the way it did me. I wish that, as her husband, I had been stronger in that regard. Perhaps, by striving to be less fearful with my life as I begin to step out of the shadows of this present sorrow, I will somehow honor and heal the imperfections of our marriage. For me, it is just as important to love what didn’t go right as it is to love what did because all of it is a reflection of the brief life we lived with each other.

A view of the San Pedro Volcano from the village of Santa Cruz.

I decided to scatter Aubrey’s ashes at the end of our last full day at Lake Atitlán. On that morning I woke up before Scott and took an early breakfast. Aaron, the hotel manager, took my order. A few minutes later he circled back to my table as I was staring out across the water toward the volcanoes on the opposite shore.

“Are you OK?” he asked. “You’re thinking too much.”
“I’m fine,” I answered.
“What is it? Do you have una novia?”

I laughed. Yes, I suppose. And, no, not exactly. I had been avoiding sharing my story with others, but Aaron seemed genuinely worried about me. So I shrugged and told him: Six years ago I came here with my girlfriend, later we married, and this past year she died. I am back because she asked me to return.

“Here? To Arca de Noe?”
“Yes, we spent three nights here.”
“Lo siento.”

He asked me for a photo that he could tack to a bulletin board in the dining room. I happened to have a picture in my pack that showed Aubrey and I standing on one of the docks in a nearby town. Later, as we tacked it to the bulletin board, he said: “If you come back in one, two, or three years that picture will still be there. I’ll make sure.”

Tacking a photo to a bulletin board is such a small thing, yet somehow it gave me comfort. I felt as though I wasn’t totally leaving Aubrey. Perhaps we were still, in some way, together here. As I worked my way through this thought, Aaron continued:

“I believe that when you visit a place, your energy, it changes it. That’s why when you come home, you feel comfort. Or when you visit a place for a second time, it is familiar. You have changed it, and when you return, you recognize that a part of you has remained there and you find that part of yourself again. The two of you came here together, and now you are here again, and you’ve changed this place because of your presence. Now you are part of it, and part of you will remain here.”

At mid-morning Scott and I took a boat to the small village of San Juan. We were on a mission to find a woman named Petrona and her daughter Christy. Petrona makes traditional textiles and, at the advice of a friend of a friend in Seattle who imports Guatemalan textiles, Aubrey and I had also searched for Petrona during our trip together. We had arrived in San Juan on the back of a truck instead of in a boat, and we walked through the town asking for Petrona until we found ourselves standing in her backyard. Aubrey and I spent an unforgettable afternoon with Petrona’s entire family with Christy serving as our translator. Petrona showed us her work and her looms, her husband picked fresh mangoes for us from a nearby tree, Christy’s younger sister ran to a local shop to buy us Pepsis and cookies, and Christy took us for a short hike to a vista overlooking the lake and surrounding mountains. For us, that afternoon was the highlight of our trip. For two or three short hours, we were more than just gringo tourists snapping pictures. We were ordinary people connecting with other ordinary people. It just so happened that two of us where white and from Seattle, while Petrona and her family were Mayans from a small village in Guatemala. There was something pure and magical about that connection—a feeling I have rarely experienced outside of Peace Corps.

This time around I was able to connect with Christy by email beforehand. I let her know the day we were coming and the reason for my return to Lake Atitlán. Scott and I easily found Petrona’s house, and soon we were sitting with these two women on the same porch where Aubrey and I had shared that graceful afternoon six years prior. We all looked a few years older. Petrona is now in her early 50s. Christy is a few years my junior but is now married with a 5-year-old son and living in a village on the other side of a steep mountain pass. I pulled out two photos that I had brought with me to give to them: one a portrait of the family that I had taken on our last visit; the other a photo of Aubrey standing on the main plaza of Antigua. When Petrona looked down at the photo of Aubrey, she immediately burst into tears.

Christy and Petrona

Petrona was having a busy day. The regional bishop was on his way to visit San Juan, so she had spent the morning collecting flowers from trees in her yard. She explained that everyone in the village was doing the same, and during the early afternoon the villagers would create a welcome mat of flowers for half a mile or more along the main street leading up a steep hill between the boat landing and the main church. Despite the pending processional, she offered to fix us lunch.

While she began to prepare our lunch Christy took us to visit a nearby cooperative that grows and processes coffee for export. The tour ended with samples from a coffee bar. We sat at a table on a broad veranda, enjoying the afternoon warmth and sun, while we talked with Christy about San Juan and the local villages. The conversation meandered onto the topic of local languages and how the children around the lake are no longer learning the Mayan languages that have been spoken there for generations and how only the women still wear traditional clothes. We laughed about how the world over, it seems to be the women who act as the guardians of culture—men seem to lose their way among more material distractions: TVs, radios, pick-up trucks, or at least the desire for those things.

As we walked back to Petrona’s house, the villagers were beginning to haul baskets of flowers, bright green grasses, and large palm fronds to the main street to build a carpet for the bishop. When we arrived back at the house, Petrona was setting the table for a feast of chicken, vegetables, rice, soup, homemade tortillas, and picante. All of it was delicious, wholesome, and filling. We visited for a while longer, and Scott and I put our broken Spanish to the test. As we talked, I could see and hear the scene from six years ago playing out around us.

Villagers from San Juan wait for the arrival of the bishop.

After saying our goodbyes, we walked out to the main road. It was covered in flowers, and musicians were setting up along the sidewalks. A steady stream of women in traditional clothes filed down the hill toward the docks to wait for the bishop. As I watched the final preparations, I imagined for a moment that they were welcoming Aubrey. For the first time since arriving, I began to feel at peace with the idea of leaving Aubrey’s ashes at the lake. When the procession finally wound its way up the hill with the bishop, the street seemed to erupt with song. As the bishop strolled upward along the bed of flowers marking the route to the church, the women of the village walked with him, surrounding him on every side as if to protect him. As they paraded by, I realized that I was somehow entrusting Aubrey’s spirit to these women and that they would care for her with the same tenderness.

After returning to Arca de Noe, Scott and I climbed the steep hill to the village of Santa Cruz, where we had a memorable dinner with a local family that Scott had befriended the day before. Late that night we took Aubrey’s ashes and walked through the gardens of Arca de Noe. Aubrey loved all of the tropical flowers and plants on the grounds of the hotel. When she asked me to take her ashes to Guatemala, I knew this garden was where she wanted to be. The air was cool. The only sounds were the wind rustling the trees, the waves sloshing against the shore, and the chirping of crickets. A bright half-moon washed the garden in silver light. I left a few of her ashes near the most colorful flowers, and then walked down to the water’s edge. Stars and constellations decorated the night sky. Directly across the lake we could see the dark silhouettes of the tallest volcanoes pressed against the horizon. I watched the wind stirring the waves on the lake while the moonlight danced across the moving surface. It was a peaceful setting—a suitable place and moment for acknowledging a hard-won marriage and a beautiful life. I tossed the rest of her ashes into the wind and tried my best to let go.

The next morning we left Santa Cruz early for another long day of travel. As we took our last boat ride across the lake, I kept thinking back to Aaron’s words. I was leaving part of Aubrey at this lake, yet I was also leaving part of myself there too. It is not unlike the moment she died. She left this world for the next and took a part of me there with her. Grief isn’t only mourning the other person. It is also mourning the places inside your soul that die along with the person you love. Yet, it is those places which travel along with your person to her new home, protecting and comforting her, much like the women walking in step with the bishop up the hill.

Women escorting the bishop to the church in San Juan.

Photos by Scott Squire