Letter: All Alone – But Not Alone – In the Wilderness

“What are some of the most important things you learned from your father?”

That was the question at the top of my journal page in the leather bound book given to me by my grandchildren this past Father’s Day, a journal entitled “A Grandfather’s Life – I Want To Know Everything About You.”

With a full backpack I had just hiked four miles down 2,300 feet of elevation to the river, a training hike to prepare for a much longer one coming up on what would have been our 52^nd Anniversary.

I lost my wife of 50 years to a long battle with cancer just over a year ago.

On this coming anniversary, I will again be deep in the mountains, alone, very much alone.

I had sought reservations on a remote mountain lake that is shaped like a heart, appropriate I thought for the occasion. However, the ranger said when I called, camp sites had long since been secured for that portion of the alpine wilderness, “but just a moment,” he said. “Let me check something.

“There is another lake not far away that has only one spot for camping and there are no reservations for that. If you take that spot, you will have the whole lake to yourself.”

Absolutely. I’ll be there. All alone, very much alone.

And I’ll journal there because my grandchildren want to know everything about me.

Like what I learned from my dad.

It was the same question popular speaker and writer Charles Swindoll reflected upon the day after his dad died.

Swindoll wrote in his journal of his father, “I realized I had him to thank for my deep love for America. And for knowing how to tenderly care for my wife….”

Yes, I too learned that from my father, who loved America, fought for America, and who loved my mom, for over 50 years loved my mom, and who loved the wilderness, the forests, and the rivers, and the mountains.

Like me.

There were a few tears there by the river.

I closed my journal.

Streaks of sunlight pierced the forest as the sun rose over the mountain causing beautiful yellow flowers sprinkled about the river to rejoice in the new day.

Shouldering my pack, I headed back for the long battle up the mountain to the parking lot far above during which time – both down and back – I saw not another hiker. I was alone, very much alone.

The path was grueling, brutal, switchbacks upon switchbacks.

But every now and then, looking back on the way I had come, there was the mountain framed through the window of trees.

“Exceeding comprehension,” is the way some commentators describe the marvelous works of God, “singular works, conspicuous works as seen in nature.”

Such as I saw, alone, but as it turns out not alone, in the wilderness.