MONDAY, MAY 10, 1999
I get up quickly from the park bench when I see Patti approach and hug her. Her presence reassures me. The fact that she has survived gives me hope that I will too. We walk along the beach together. It has been six years since Dan was killed on K2.
I hug myself and look at Patti. “I just feel like I was on the highest, most beautiful mountain in the world, and then I came crashing down. And I’ll never be able to climb that mountain again.”
Patti leans around to look me in the eye. “You and Jim did share a beautiful mountain. But there are other mountains, not necessarily better or worse, just different. You’ll climb other mountains.”
“I don’t know how to do this. Sometimes I think of how Jim would handle it if the situation were reversed, if I had been killed. He would know what to do.” I feel insecure, sorry for myself.
Patti stops and grabs my arm, “Jim would have been devastated.” Somehow this makes me feel better.
“It has taken me a long time to realize it, but I am angry at Dan, and at Jim. I am angry that they chose to mountaineer. They didn’t have to. They could have done something else.” Patti looks set in her opinion, and I have no idea how to respond nor do I want to. I don’t feel angry with Jim.
That afternoon, Patti and I go to see a well-known channeller, someone who communicates with spirits, in one of the Vancouver hotel ballrooms. I’ve just finished reading Journey of Souls, in which grief-struck people are reassured and relieved by contacting their dead loved ones through hypnotism.
There must be over a thousand people in the bright, white-walled room. We sit in foldout chairs and wait. A microphone stands in the middle of the two sections of seats, and a large platform is set up at the front of the room. When the plump middle-aged psychic with permed long blonde hair with dark roots walks onstage, the applause bounces off the ceiling and walls. I can see her mascara from where I sit near the back. She talks of life and the afterlife rather than death. The spirit prevails. Death is not to be feared. I listen. I fantasize about walking up to the audience microphone and telling her about Jim. She would cry at the depth of our love and call Jim back. His voice would resonate in the room: I love you, Sue, and I’ll never leave you. I am okay.
I choke back tears at the thought.
Question time comes and the first brave soul approaches the microphone. My palms sweat. She coughs and sputters her words. I want someone to hold her hand, cheer her on. A month ago, her husband and son were killed in an automobile accident. She grips the microphone with both hands. She wants to know if they are okay. She waits, crying.
The psychic asks rhetorically, “They died of chest wounds?”
“Yes,” the widow cries.
“They’re fine,” the psychic says, “just fine. Nothing to worry about. They’ve gone to the afterlife. No limbo for them. All good.”
I tense and expect the psychic at any moment to say, “Next.” The widow mumbles a thank you and stumbles to her seat. I don’t hear the rest of the grievers. Do I feel uncomfortable because I don’t believe the psychic or because she accepts death so easily? I want to believe anything that will bring Jim back to me. I want her to bring Jim back to life. Applause fills the space when she is finished. I drive quietly back to Whistler.
That night, when I watch the evening news, there is a special about the hypnotist Dr. Michael Newton, the author of Journey of Souls. The interviewer asks him how he contacts the deceased, and he explains. The next interview is with one of his clients who performed on his television show. The client admits he was planted in the audience and told what to say.
The final interview is with the author of the book Why People Believe. We believe because we are human. We need something to believe in. And sometimes we believe because we are terrified of losing who we are.