Wednesday, April 3, 2019

Mt. Leconte

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man. 

     - Heraclitus


Last Tuesday, on a cold East Tennessee morning, J.P. and I pulled into the parking lot of the Rainbow Falls Trailhead, set to begin our hike to Mt. Leconte.  There was only one other car in the parking lot.


I was a little nervous, mostly for him, but truthfully, a little for me, too.  I wasn't sure how J.P. would handle the hike given that he'd never attempted one close to this distance (6.7 miles to the top) or of this difficulty.

He and I had jokingly built up the idea of hiking to Mt. Leconte to the point where we had decided he would be a man if he made it.  He began to take the idea seriously and reminded me several times over the preceding weekend that he was about to become a man.  I laughed and played along.  

I added a light weight jacket because it really was cold, stopped by the restroom and off we went.  Although I was wearing gloves, my fingertips were so cold they were hurting.

It had been 25 years since I last hiked up to Mt. Leconte on the Rainbow Falls Trail.  As we  hiked alongside a meandering creek strewn with borders, I was nostalgic as I thought about the years lost to time.  I thought about what my life was like the last time I walked the same path, likely by myself, in my mid-twenties.  So much had changed since then.

I thought about my mom, of course, and how much I missed her.

As we warmed up during the first mile, I took off my jacket and put in it my backpack.  J.P. and I settled into the comfortable rhythm that only hikers on a strenuous hike know.  Lost in our own thoughts with the reverie broken every so often by a few words exchanged about the trail or the scenery.  I quickly realized, with relief, that he was a natural hiker and better yet, the perfect hiking companion.


We rested a time or two as or legs adjusted to the continuous uphill climb.  After an hour and a half or so on the trail, we arrived at Rainbow Falls.  The view was spectacular, just as I remembered it.  We talked with a father and son from Alabama at the falls and asked one of them to take a photograph of us.

After we admired Rainbow Falls, I asked J.P. if he wanted to keep going up to Mt. Leconte or if wanted to hike back down the trail.  Without hesitation, he told me he wanted to keep going.  I smiled.  That's my boy, I thought.  And off we went.


Walking behind me, J.P. asked me if when she was younger, Meemaw liked to hike or do activities outdoors.  I smiled to myself, as I knew this was a signal from J.P. that he wanted - needed - to talk with me about my mom.  For next hour or so, we slowed our pace a bit and I told him stories about her.

I told him that while my mom had never been much or a hiker, she had started playing tennis in her mid-30's.  She used to play tennis with our neighbors and close friends at the court across the street from our house.  She also played doubles for several years at the Brentwood Dolphin Club in a women's league.

Then, transitioning, I told him how happy my mom was when I told her - at Evelyn and Bill Pilkington's house - that Jude was pregnant with him.  I told him how much she used to love keeping him during the week, occasionally, when Uncle Carley (our nanny) was sick or out of town.  I told him how proud of him she was, always.

Turning to catch his eye, I told J.P. how angry and frustrated I was when we first realized she had Alzheimer's disease.  I told him how unfair I thought that was after all she had done for so many others during her life.  Looking at him more closely, I told J.P. that my faith in God had been tested - that I'd never lost it, but it surely had been tested - while I tried to come to terms with her decline health and loss of quality of life.  I told him that for a while, I was angry with God, which was wrong of me.

I talked about how hard the last week of my mom's life had been on me.  I also told him how sad I had been, but that I knew it was okay to be sad.  I told him I still was sad sometimes - a lot of the time - but that it was getting better.

And then I told him what I thought my mom taught me about faith and strength and family.

Faith in God keeps you going when all about you is lost.  I told him I believed - and I do believe this - the that my mom is in heaven and that she is with God.  She is watching all of us, with pride, and looking out for us.  Maybe even putting in a good word for us when needed.  Her spirit is here, with us every day in the form of goodness, happiness and memories.

I told him about all of the adversity my mom had seen in her life, from losing her husband and being widowed at age 31 with two young children to losing both of her sisters to caring for her mother and two aunts in their declining years to working nights as a nurse at Baptist Hospital to losing her memory and dealing with her declining physical health the last year before she died.  I told him that she never companied, never stopped smiling and never, ever stopped loving all of us.

I told him she taught me that you get up, every day, put your feet on the floor, take a few steps and make it through that day.  Then, you do it again the next day, and the next day, and on and on, and that dealing with your grief gets a little bit easier - incrementally - every day.  She told me that very thing on more than one occasion when I asked her how she dealt with losing her husband and her sisters.

I told him how important family was to my mom.  I told him she had taught me that you can always depend on your family, the no one is more important in your life than your family.  I told him how spending that last week together at the hospital had reminded me of the importance of family and that part of me felt like that was my mom's intent.  She wasn't going to leave - or die - until she knew we understood for a final time how important it is to strengthen the ties that bind our family together.

It was a talk we needed to have.  A talk I needed to have and I think that he needed to have, with me. And I'll never forget it.

On the last half of our assent up the Rainbow Falls Trail, the temperature dropped.  We began to see more ice on the trail.  I took the lead and when we came to icy patches of rocks, I reached back for J.P. and he took my hand, without complaint, so I could guide him across to a safer footfall.  The symbolism wasn't lost on me because in 10 or 15 years, it's likely that he'll be doing the same for me.

The terrain changed as we approached the end of the trail and summit of Mt. Leconte.  It was just as I remembered it with evergreens lining the trail on both sides.

Finally, we arrived at the summit - at Mt. Leconte Lodge (where, in a different lifetime, I stayed overnight on a few occasions).  Unfortunately, the Lodge was closed, as the helicopter was delivering supplies every 15 or 20 minutes to prepare for the season's opening the following week.  It was interesting to watch the large, red and white helicopter hover overhead with propane tanks dangling beneath it.

We quickly lost interest, however, when we realized that every time the helicopter arrived, the temperature dropped 10 degrees or so due to the wind generated by the rotating blades that kept it aloft.  It was hard to eat our lunch with the helicopter hovering over our heads because it was so damn cold.  We ate quickly and talked briefly with an older gentleman and fellow hiker (Larry).  I used the latrine and we hiked to the Bullhead Trail to began our descent.

The fire damage on the Bullhead Trail was readily visible.  The magnitude of the devastation was immense even more than a year after the fire.  So many beautiful, old growth trees lost, with blackened dead trunks left huddled together on the mountainside.  It was surreal.  In places, the trail was blocked with fallen trees.  We navigated through or around the deadfalls and made really good time on the way down the trail.

At long last, around 3:30 p.m., we arrived at the parking lot at the Rainbow Falls trailhead, tired but satisfied.  I was so proud of J.P.  Throughout what turned out to be a 14 + mile hike - and a difficult one at that - he never complained.  He rarely needed to rest.  He hiked like a boss on the trail..  Truthfully, he was the perfect hiking companion for me.

And that, I think, is what was kind of cool.  For maybe the first time, J.P. and I were almost like peers.  Companions, more than father and son.  Sure that part was there, but he was an individual keeping up with me on the trail with no apparent difficulty.  That made me proud of him.  Very proud.  It also made me anticipate, with happiness, our relationship in years to come.

So, J.P. and I spent a day together hiking up to Mt. LeConte and back down the mountain, a day we needed to spend together.  It was a day I'll never forget.




Way to go, J.P.!  Know that on this day, you impressed your dad.  I'm proud of you.

 

  

      




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