I Got You (or the time I almost fell off the mountain)

I gingerly slid my foot forward, testing the spot to see if it would hold.  The mountain snow was soft, not liquid, but not firm either.  Perfect slipping conditions.  I held a hiking pole in each hand and leaned hard as I stepped.   

I was halfway across the snowfield when tears began to cloud my vision.  Every step was a fight for stability. There was a time when I leapt over obstacles like this with ease.  Now I wondered if I’d be able to get down what I was climbing. 

Nineteen months ago, I had a surgery that was supposed to fix the knee problems I racked up from years of ski racing and competitive soccer.  But instead of surgery fixing the issues, I am worse, and it has profoundly impacted my mobility.  I was one of the unlucky few who had a “devastating outcome.” 

A person pays no attention to how critical it is to be able to bend a knee normally until it can’t be done.  With only a thirty-degree bend, I struggle to walk and going up and down steps are impossible without serious modification. I often find myself in a free-fall, no longer able to catch myself with my knee.

“What would you do if you were in my situation?” I had asked the Mayo Clinic Orthopedic Specialist. 

“Learn to be happy with the movement you’ve got.”  He replied. 

It wasn’t the response I anticipated, and I felt like someone had punched me in the gut.  Wasn’t the medical superpower supposed to be able to fix just about any problem like this?  I was stunned. The loss of hope felt deep and wide, like falling into a crevasse with no rescue ladder. 

I hadn’t attempted a hike like this one since before my surgery.  2700 feet elevation gain, 7 + miles.  I knew I would be slow and it would be difficult, but I didn’t anticipate encountering snow on the last pitch before the summit.  Fear rose in my chest as the tears began to slide off my cheeks and onto the melting snow.  If I fell, I couldn’t catch myself.  At this sharp angle, I would simply careen down the mountain.

On a particularly precarious part, I paused and caught my breath.  In an instant, my husband, Erik, stepped below me, positioning himself between me and the mountain. 

“I’ve got you” is all he said as he side-stepped the steep slope. As my tears turned to sobs, he said it again, and again, and again.   

The snowfield had breached the dam of my heart. I felt the watershed of months of frustration, sadness, loss, and fear of the future come rushing forward to the surface.  We often have our moments of reckoning in vulnerable situations, and this was mine.

“I’ve got you, babe.  I’ve got you.”

His voice halted my spiraling thoughts and swirling fears.  He wasn’t going to let me fall, not here, not ever. 

Because he didn’t just mean on the mountain. 

He’s got me if I never improve.  If more trials come.  He has me when we are standing on mountaintops, and when we are in desert valleys.  I’m not alone in my joys, and I’m not alone when life gets so steep it’s hard to stand.

His reassuring words helped me regain strength and I focused on my feet.  One step at a time I marched forward, Erik’s hands steadying me as I went.  The snow field disappeared, and we fell back into single file. 

As I neared the top, my boys, who had reached the summit long before us, saw us coming and began shouting and clapping as I limped my way to the top.   I smiled big.  They cheered for me, and I took their encouragement, but I knew the real reason I made it up that hill is because of the person who didn’t leave me when the going got hard.

Curt Thompson, MD and author of The Deepest Place: Suffering and the Formation of Hope says,

“Our minds were made for connection, not lease when we are suffering.  Hence, we must be willing to name our sadnesses, both great and small. And we must name them to another who is able to validate our emotion. It is in this action that our minds realize they are not alone, and our grief is shared. In sensing that someone else also shares the load of our grief, we no longer must burn the energy we have been consuming in our attempt to contain it. And with the lightening of our load, we are freed that much more to care for others, receiving their grief, and to begin the process of creating goodness and beauty around us.” 

Everyone is climbing a hard mountain; mobility happens to be mine right now.  But what we all have in common is our need for climbing partners.  As Dr. Thompson says, we even need them on a neurologic level.  Grief and suffering are endured differently when shouldered with another. 

Erik has given me vision for who I want to be in my circle:

The “I got you” mom. 

The “I got you” wife. 

The “I got you” daughter, sister, aunt, and friend.

I want to put myself between the people I love and their metaphorical mountain, keeping them steady on the trail. 

We can’t do it for everyone, but we can do it for some… and that makes all the difference.  It certainly did for me.