The End of the Trail

Mt. Adams and the Columbia River Gorge, as seen from Aldrich Butte

Aldrich Butte

“Copilot...of my...”

I was staring off at the forested mountains that stretched out endlessly before me, but my attention was immediately pulled back by the first few words of the familiar phrase, spoken in an unfamiliar voice.

“Copilot of my heart,” I filled in, looking down at the ink on my arm. “It’s a tattoo I got with my sister.” In fact, I’d dropped her off at the airport for her Air Force survival training only the previous morning, and had spent much of my hike wondering how she was doing. I quickly explained the nuances of the tattoo to my fellow hiker: how each of our tattoos bore the other’s handwriting, the flight theme my sister had chosen for “copilot,” the EKG tracing I had chosen for “heart” to reflect my nursing career.

The woman nodded, and for a moment, we were silent. We strained our eyes against the bright day, watching her husband and daughters navigate a narrow spine of rock that marked the end of the trail, hundreds of feet above the trees below us.

The trail seems to hover above the trees

Her husband’s voice floated to us on the breeze, faint but excited. “Hey, you can see Mt. Adams from out here!”

I hike for solitude. I enjoy hiking with friends, too, but I feel most happy and most free with hours of empty trails and breathtaking views I enjoy on my own terms. The first solo hike I ever undertook was a desperate escape, the only self-care I could conceive of after a traumatic day in the ER that involved a pediatric suicide (my first pediatric code, my first completed suicide, the first time I drove home crying so hard I was screaming). Within months, my solo hikes with my dog, Karma, were staples on my days off.

Karma pretends to enjoy the views too, for my sake

Yet, somehow, I found I didn’t mind the presence of this woman and her family. It certainly helped that our first interaction was her fawning over Karma when he ran up to her seeking treats. The epitome of a food-motivated corgi, that one. (If I gave in to those puppy-dog eyes, I’d have to roll him alongside me.) More than that, however, was the easy silence I found us sharing as we stood atop Aldrich Butte, the beauty of the Columbia River Gorge spread out below us in all its greens and blues.

“My brother’s dying of cancer,” she finally said, her eyes still fixed ahead. “I’ve wanted to do that, to get a tattoo for him. Yours is really beautiful.”

The quiet admission surprised me, having met her five minutes before and ten feet away from where we now stood, and yet the human connection felt so natural that perhaps I was more surprised by my lack of surprise.

What else could I say, but, “I’m sorry.” I say those words so often. I almost always mean them; I almost always cringe internally at how insincere I sound. For once, to this woman I’d never meet again, my sincerity came through. I was fiercely grateful for that. And, having accepted the connection she offered me, I wanted to offer what I could back. I brushed my tattoo with a fingertip, the coarse fabric of the leash trailing behind.

“I don’t know what will happen with my sister,” I admitted. “I hope this is just a way for us to stay together when she’s deployed. But...this way I know she’s always with me. No matter what happens.”

She understood immediately. “He’s close to the end. I’ve been thinking about it. It would need to be soon. I have other tattoos, but this would be the most important.”

I thought about the simple loss line my sister-in-law carries on her forearm, a dark red the color of the dog she and my husband grew up with. I thought about the watercolor butterfly on a patient’s clavicle, for her daughter. I hadn’t asked how she’d died. I didn’t ask what kind of cancer this woman’s brother had, or when it had been diagnosed, or what treatments he had tried, but I wondered. Imagined him in the countless faces of cancer patients I have cared for.

Her husband was beginning to pick his way back over to us, trekking poles steadying his path over the rocks.

“You should do it,” I said. “You really should. It’ll always be with you. You won’t regret it.”

She nodded emphatically. “You’re right. It needs to be special, though.”

“Yeah, it does.”

Her husband was almost back. If I wanted to finish the trail, step by careful step out onto that ridge, now was the time.

I looked at her, and it was perhaps the first time we spoke truly face-to-face, neither one of us gazing out at the view.

“I hope it’s an easy end for him,” I said.

I realized I was shaking. It was the most heartfelt wish I could offer, and I saw her release a deep breath. A strange phrase to part on, perhaps, in another place, with another person. But our brief conversation had already told me that she was ready for it and would understand.

When she replied, “Thank you,” it was almost a whisper.

We shared a nod, and I edged out onto the trail, Karma’s leash firmly in hand. As the ground fell away at my feet, so did her tragedy. My world narrowed to one step, then another, edging forward inch by inch. I braced myself against a rock, stopped to look down at the forest far below us, almost swayed from vertigo, came back to myself. I spared a glance behind me, confirming for myself that the woman was once again surrounded by her family.

Then I looked forward again and squinted into the sun to find the promised Mt. Adams. I had my own family here, all four stumpy legs and two giant ears of him. As I pondered life and death, he nosed at the wildflowers clinging precariously to their vertical meadow, and tried to eat a butterfly.

The end of the Aldrich Butte trail