Go Outside with the People You Love
This April, while climbing in the Chugach Mountains with my partner Malcolm, my dear friend Danny fell and died. Malcolm experienced the trauma of seeing his partner fall and the terrible aftermath. I had the responsibility of coordinating what I tried to convince myself was a rescue, but knew to be a recovery. We had the heavy task of notifying many of Danny’s friends and acquaintances of his death. We cried with his parents over the phone that night.
This spring, as he had for the past few years, Danny came to live with us during Alaska’s peak skiing/climbing season. Malcolm and I had started to think of spring as ‘Danny Season’ and had already been scheming plans for next year and the twenty years thereafter. Danny slipped so seamlessly into our lives whenever he came to town that he had an open invitation to come whenever and stay as long as he could.
This March Danny, our friend Nyssa, and I spent a beautiful week skiing from Eureka to Valdez. I’m treasuring my memories of Danny basking in the sun on the Nelchina Glacier, lounging below Mt. Shouplina and gliding effortlessly down the Valdez Glacier from Cashman Col. My connection with Danny was based on shared values, a love of wild places and an appreciation for true friends. And while I loved spending time with Danny in town - eating Korean food, researching trips, listening to him play the guitar, putting him to work around our house - my love for him grew during days in the backcountry. For me, bonds like these rarely develop outside of the mountains. It is hard to touch the intimacy built on having your ski partner’s back, waiting out a storm in a tent or tying into either end of a rope. I am so grateful for the time we spent together - the slow mornings drinking coffee and eating pancakes and especially our big adventures in the mountains.
There is so much more I want to say about Danny, about who he was and what he meant to my partner and me. But every time I sit down to try and capture what a light he was, I’m disappointed by the inadequacy of my words. Most folks who know Malcolm and I also know how much we loved Danny. But when I speak with acquaintances, friends of friends, new people at work, I have dreaded having to explain who Danny was to us. I want to convey his importance, but I hesitate to trivialize our relationship with insufficient labels. He was our sometimes-roommate, third-wheel, ski partner, surrogate brother, climbing partner, tent-mate, good buddy and our chosen family. We loved him.
I think it is normal after a person dies to elevate them in our mind - to emphasize the good and forgive the bad. But there is no hyperbole when I say Danny was the best. He was genuinely thoughtful, unabashedly enthusiastic and an old soul. I was far from the only person to find Danny unequivocally likable. Following his death, love poured in from people who had been lucky enough to cross Danny’s winding path. He had close friends and enthusiastic admirers all across the western U.S. If you knew Danny, I’m sorry for your loss. And if you never met Danny, I’m sorry for you too. You missed out on the chance to know one of the most beautiful people.
We spent the week after Danny died immersed in our mourning, spending time with his parents and friends. But then, our lives, inconceivably, sputtered into motion again. I thought our world should have stopped, but instead my partner and I both started new jobs, I went to meetings and the gym, we signed our marriage certificate at our kitchen table. Since then, there have been moments of deep, heavy, sadness - the kind that makes it hard to leave the couch. And we’ve experienced the joy and elation of moving quickly through the mountains for long hours. Sometimes when I’m driving alone I sob until I have to pull over. But I’ve also laughed so hard my stomach aches.
Within a couple weeks of Danny’s death, the climbing and mountain communities lost several young luminaries. While previously we had been cocooned in our private grief, I now saw our loss mirrored back at us as the media reported on their deaths and the whole mountain community mourned. The refrain was the same: too young, doing what they loved, living inspired lives, large voids left behind. I selfishly resented that the stories were similar - I felt that my grief was singular, I didn’t want it to be a part of a pattern of brave young men lost to the mountains.
Danny was young and with his death come all the cliches: too young, so much potential, etc. And Danny did have plans and dreams that I am devastated we won’t be able to see him achieve. But the thing I want to remember about his youth was how it contrasted with his wise, old soul. I want to focus on how despite his age, he had distilled life to its most essential and was living in a way most of us can only hope to emulate. When I think of ways to live like Danny, it comes down to a few simple principles:
Greet people, adventures and each day with stoke, an open heart and a smile.
Move. Make art. Write letters.
Go outside with people you love.
It is hard to say that I miss Danny. He was a transient, seasonal person who we always expected to pass in and out of our lives periodically. So it is no surprise that Danny isn’t in my kitchen making coffee this morning or playing guitar for the neighbor kids in my front yard. When six months pass and no thoughtful letter or watercolor painting shows up in the mail, maybe then my brain will know that he is gone. Or next spring as we gear up for skiing and climbing objectives, but he isn’t here to tackle them with us, maybe then it will be real. For now my head and my heart insist that he is just “somewhere else”.
Whether my brain can grasp his absence or not, the world is undoubtably a dimmer place without him. I feel a great responsibility to carry some of Danny’s light as I move forward, but I’m not always sure how best to honor him. For now, I’m trying to greet the world with the same kindness Danny did. Some days that feels like a struggle. Most of all, I’m trying to spend time outside with people I love. Danny’s enviable life was centered on spending time in wild places with good friends - I can think of no better way to live.
