“Depression — you’re welcome to hike up to Tam MacArthur Rim with me,” I said out loud after waking up on the blue side yesterday, “… but I doubt you’ll be able to keep up.”
Even though my life is good and full and there’s no reason for it, depression and anxiety often wake up with me.
My husband, Gary, and I had several favorite trails in the Oregon Cascades. One of my brave-making goals is to eventually re-hike all of them. Alone.
One of my closest friends from high school, Cheryl—whose brother I married—walked beside her husband, Steve, as he entered hospice care last week.
My husband, Gary, and I climbed several mountains during his cancer years. The highest elevation we ever reached was a trail ending at an icy-cold lake in the Colorado Rockies — 13,850 feet up.
There was the statement that resonated with me: “If we’re not content single, we won’t be content married.”
A close friend’s husband has cancer. They’re saying maybe three, maybe four months.
And then there’s my sweet friend who lost her husband and young son to a sneaker wave. Suddenly. Unexpectedly. Tragically.
My flight to Tucson earlier this week included three legs and two layovers that totaled twelve hours from drop-off to pick-up.
But I was prepared. I brought reading materials. And an intention to look for opportunity to do a random act of kindness. Or two.
In my ramblings on central Oregon trails this past week, several imperfect trees caught my eye. Not because they were imperfect. But because they stood out. In beauty. In uniqueness.
“You probably don’t want to make any major decisions within the first six to twelve months of widowhood,” my husband, Gary, said in one of our conversations about where his cancer was taking us.
How vital is it to see our world through the eyes of a child or an Alzheimer’s patient, to carry wonder as part of our inventory?
Copyright © 2024 Marlys Johnson
