Not About the Climb
On grief that does not match the room, and the mountains we climb anyway.
“I wanted it to be raining and storming and horrendous.”
~ Dr. Heidi Horsley, Episode 47
Heidi was in her early twenties when her brother Scott died. He had done Outward Bound, a 23-day wilderness program in the Colorado mountains, the year before. He loved it. He had signed up to go back. He didn’t make it to the second trip. She took his place.
She wasn’t an outdoors person. Scott was. She’d had two thoughts about wilderness in her life and they were both “no thanks.” She went anyway, because he had wanted to go, and that felt like enough.
For 23 days she carried everything she had on her back. There was a three-day solo built in, and she spent it asking herself the same thing on repeat, “Why am I here?” She was contemplating not only why she was on the trail, but also why she was living.
She found herself sobbing. The other people on the trip would say things like “That climb was rough,” “That was so hard,” or “You did great.” She’d nod. They thought she was crying because the mountain was steep.
It was steep, but that’s not what she was crying about.
She said it like this on Episode 47, and I had to stop:
“It was a hard mountain to climb, but not in the physical sense. It was the emotional mountain I was climbing to learn how to live my life without one of the most important people in it.”
I had to stop because I’d done the same thing, almost exactly.
🐺
A few years after Tony died, I was on a business coaching retreat. One of those programs with a packing list, group dinners, workshops, community, and outdoor activities. We were supposed to go on a short hike, which in reality was an all day adventure. It was Mt. Si near North Bend, Washington.
Unlike Heidi I do love a good hike and being outdoors. My husband has a good story about me and hiking, but that’s not relevant today. However, at that time in my life that I was on Mt. Si, I was definitely not in good shape.
And, despite the grief, I was not crying easily that year. Yet, I cried at the top and up and down the mountain, too.
The people I was with thought it was the climb. They were kind about it. They said it was hard or were encouraging. Some even were giving me permission to stop and turn around. But I was determined to finish and to climb to the top, not just for me, but also for Tony.
It was a hard hike. My tears were not about that.
What I was actually doing on that mountain was deciding to carry my grief and learn to live with it. I was deciding to build this, The Broken Pack including what it was becoming, what it is now, and what it will be next.
I made the decision on a mountain because a mountain felt right. I needed something outside that matched what was already happening inside. I needed to prove something to myself that Tony always knew about me: I could do hard things. I could survive.
🐺
When Heidi described Outward Bound to me, she said something I keep thinking about. She said she wanted her external life to reflect how she was feeling. She described that the pleasant April weather when Scott died felt wrong. She needed it to be raining, storming, horrendous. She needed the world to match how she felt inside.
I think a lot of surviving siblings and other grievers have done a version of this. It isn’t always a mountain. Sometimes it's the project everyone says you can't handle. Sometimes it's a move. Sometimes it's training for something physical. Sometimes it's picking up something heavy on purpose.
You are looking for an outside that matches your inside. You are climbing something other people can’t see.
When people watch you do it, they put a name on the visible part. You must be tired. That’s a big undertaking. You’re really pushing yourself. They are not wrong. They are also not seeing the actual mountain.
If you’re mid-climb right now and you don’t fully know what the climb is for, there are two things I want to share:
The climb is real. The visible part takes effort. Your body knows. Your tiredness is not made up. Grief can be physically exhausting.
The actual mountain might not be the one under your feet or the difficult thing you are taking on physically, at work, or in your home. It might be the internal mountain Heidi named, the one you’re climbing to learn how to live your life without someone you love.
Neither mountain is small. You don’t have to pick which one to honor. You can climb both.
Heidi also said this in the episode: when she wanted to quit on Outward Bound, she’d channel Scott: his strength, what he would have said, and how he would have done it. This helped her to keep going. I did the same on Mt. Si. I still do.
I talked to Tony at the summit of Mt. Si, and I realized he had been there for the entire climb.
🐺
A small writing prompt, if any of this landed:
What is the mountain only you can see right now?
Write for five minutes. No editing. No judgment. Just let it come.
Three more prompts arrive tomorrow, free for every subscriber. A longer set arrives later in the week for paid subscribers.
Warmly,
Angela
Tony’s little sister 🐺
Note: A first-timer’s primer for hiking Mount Si without tears (Seattle Times)
Register for our inaugural book club, Tony’s Corner, in which we are reading Brilliant Disguise by Susan Kellam. It is happening in two weeks on June 13th. If you can’t attend, register and you will have access to the recording. Paid Wild Grief subscribers attend for free.
The Broken Pack: Stories of Sibling Loss is available wherever you listen or watch podcasts.
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Wild Grief is written by Dr. Angela Dean, PsyD, FT, GTMR (psychologist, thanatologist, and Tony’s surviving sibling). Interactions with The Broken Pack, LLC, Dr. Angela Dean, and its content do not constitute a therapeutic or professional psychological relationship with Dr. Dean. All content is educational and informational, not clinical advice. If you or someone you know is in crisis, please reach out to your local crisis line or warm line, or visit findahelpline.com.
Wild Grief is original work by Dr. Angela Dean and is protected by copyright. You are welcome to share posts via link. Please do not copy, reproduce, or republish content elsewhere without written permission. Certain Broken Pack resources, including A Surviving Sibling’s Bill of Rights, are separately released under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) and may be shared in full, with attribution, for non-commercial use. Those resources will say so explicitly.
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