Hiking Through: One Man's Journey to Peace and Freedom on the Appalachian Trail

by Paul V. Stutzman

  It seems to me that women handle grief better than men do. Perhaps women are more community-minded; they have a wider circle of friends and are willing to speak more openly about their emotions. Unfortunately, when pain descends upon us men we react as we’ve been taught: keep emotions in check and solve the problem.

  Men may treat bereavement as just another of life’s problems. We need to devise a solution—the sooner the better—and end the pain. And the solution for many men appears to be finding another woman to replace the lost loved one. (I’m convinced there are men who use the memorial service for their spouse as a screening tool for potential candidates.) Find another wife, re-create the life that has been lost, problem solved. Grief gone.

  But stoicism and all our problem-solving skills cannot bring real recovery from grief. Until and unless we live through and understand our pain, we will never be a good partner to anyone in the future.

  Good old Webster defines grief as “intense emotional suffering caused by loss.” Right as he may be, it doesn’t sound much like he’s experienced that suffering. Here’s my description, born of living through it:

  grief (grēf) 1. helplessness and hopelessness 2. an elevator that only goes down 3. a black hole of emotions that traps one in its vortex 4. stepping out of an airplane without a parachute, welcoming impact as relief from the pain 5. desperately wanting to have life return to what it once was.

  Two voices clamor through the cloud of grief. One still believes that by some miraculous intervention of God, life might yet return to normal; the other voice replies that everything has been irrevocably changed forever. The road to recovery opens only after these two voices can be reconciled.

  For me, as for everyone, that road to recovery wound through a landscape of regret. Reflecting on the years Mary and I had together, I mourned the time we had wasted on silly disagreements and lamented that I had spent too much time at work, leaving the task of raising our children to my wife. I sorrowed that I had, indeed, taken Mary and our life together for granted.

  On my path through the pain, I read several books on grief, determined to understand what grief was, why we grieve, and how to recover. I also joined a grief recovery group at our church; I highly recommend such support to anyone who has lost a loved one.

  Healing came in other ways as well. In the fall after Mary’s death, my cousin joined me for two days of hiking in Utah’s Zion Canyon. I once again experienced the soothing and healing power of nature. I realized how helpful it was to discuss my feelings of loss and regret with another male and to trust another person with my thoughts and feelings. As I worked my way up the narrow but exhilarating Angels Landing Trail, I reflected on my marriage and how easily I had slipped into taking my wife for granted. I wondered how I would have been different as a husband if I had known that our days together would be over too soon.

  On the flight home, I considered the balm brought by just two days of hiking and wondered if a much longer hike might translate into continued healing. And I wanted to somehow link such a hike to my new message for men: don’t take your spouse and family for granted.

  The plan was starting to take root.

  One of the first lessons in Grief 101 is a caution against making any big, life-changing decisions for at least one year. That includes buying or selling your home, quitting or changing jobs, or getting remarried. Making major choices while your emotions are all jumbled up and you’re unable to think clearly is opening the door to disaster. If you’re fortunate enough to have some assets built up, there may be children, grandchildren, heirs, in-laws, outlaws, ruffians, and assorted vultures circling, eyeing a hoped-for endowment. Fortunately, I was not cursed with a great deal of money, so there were no grief groupies hanging around. I had three children who loved me, a church family that cared for me, and a good job. At least part of my life was still intact.

  My job took on new meaning. No longer just a means to pay for house, cars, and college tuition, my work at the restaurant became the environment where I most felt a sense of normalcy. I had lost my spouse, but I still had a reason to get up each morning. Day by day, week by week, time dragged by; but the job routine was safe and predictable.

  The route to work passed the cemetery where we had buried my wife. For several months, I thought of Mary as soon as that hillside came into view. One day, I realized I was a mile beyond the cemetery; I’d passed it and not felt my eyes drawn there. As the weeks went by, the one mile stretched to two, then three, until finally there were nights I drove all the way home without thinking about the gravesite on the hill. Those increasing distances seemed to measure my progress on the path toward recovery.

  As the one-year anniversary of Mary’s death approached, a road trip seemed like a good idea. Thinking I could leave the safety of my work environment, I planned a solo trip to New Orleans. But my timing was terrible. I left on the eve of the anniversary of Mary’s death, and by the time I was sixty miles from home, loneliness hijacked all my plans. Memories flooded back, and driving away from my home and safe routine of work, I realized again how alone I was. Emotions overwhelmed me and the tears started to roll. I wasn’t ready to be this alone. Crying like a baby, I turned the car around and went back home.

  Yes, there had been much healing in a year, yet that one-year anniversary was a brutal reminder of all that I’d lost.

  But I had survived a year, with its ups and downs, the hurt and the healing. I had survived the first year.

  I had worked in food service for almost twenty-five years. There had been great satisfactions in those years, some simply from successful management of a busy place, but many also from relationships on the job. We often employed younger people, inexperienced and working their first jobs. I had the opportunity to be not only a boss, but also a mentor to young adults learning how to function in a workplace. One day, while I waited in a hospital with Mary, a young intern entered the room with Mary’s oncologist. “Paul, what are you doing here?” the intern exclaimed. She was a young lady who had worked her very first job at my restaurant, and that day in the hospital she thanked me for encouraging her to pursue her dream of becoming a doctor.

  But the years had also brought frustrating changes to the hospitality industry. Workplace issues arose that I had never imagined earlier in my career. We had to deal with tattoos, body piercings, sexual harassment, sexual identity crises, anorexia, bulimia, and those ever-present necessities for kids, cell phones and iPods. It was a whole new ballgame. “What do you mean rules? You expect me to work without talking on my cell phone?” And these kids were becoming legal scholars: they came to work with more metal protruding from their bodies than most modern cars, and couldn’t understand a manager who insisted on following a silly employee manual. “You will hear from my dad’s attorney,” I was told more than once.

  Customers were also becoming more demanding. It’s the manager’s job to handle unhappy customers. Most of those situations can be easily handled, and of course there are always a few legitimate complaints. But as most restaurant managers will attest, there are customers who visit your establishment with only one goal: a free meal. After long years in the business, I knew most of their tricks. The manager must be the arbiter of what is fact and what is fiction. After twenty-five years, customer complaints and employee issues had taken a toll.

  The beginning of the end for me came on a Friday night, shortly after my aborted trip to New Orleans.

  One of my servers informed me that we had an irate customer. He had ordered our largest chicken dinner, and—sure enough—that very last piece did not look good to him. I had observed his many trips to the salad bar, and I knew there was nothing wrong with his meal. I approached his booth and immediately recognized Trouble. Years of being in the people business had turned me into something of a self-made psychologist. (While my employees were becoming self-made attorneys, I was becoming the restaurant shrink.)

  It is with mingled shame and pride that I admit to completely mishandling the situation.
I sized him up. My problem was a vertically challenged, steroid-pumped weight lifter. Please note that I have no problem with weight lifting, bodybuilding, or any attempts to improve one’s body. But this guy was obviously addicted to his bodybuilding. You know the type—short in stature with a protruding chest, above which his neck had somehow melted into his shoulders. He should have worn a sign: “I need attention. I am very insecure.”

  “What’s the problem?” I asked.

  That little head swiveled on the steroid-enhanced shoulders, face livid, veins bulging. And Trouble informed me his chicken was “no good.” I made him aware that I knew of his many trips to the salad bar, and I was also certain there was nothing wrong with his chicken, especially since he had already eaten most of it.

  Not the response he wanted. He unhinged. Swollen arms flailed. In a rage, he cursed and screamed, “Are you calling me a liar?”

  Yes, I agreed with him, he was a liar. Must have pushed the wrong button there too, because then he offered to kill me. By then, every Christian tenet I had ever been taught (such as love thy enemy) had left me, and I was savoring the idea of tearing him apart, limb by overinflated limb. But I thought better of it, since he could have squeezed the life out of me like a boa constrictor.

  He hurled more invectives, went through another round of profanities, and then left, shouting to the entire dining room that he would never come back to this restaurant. I assured him that never would be too soon.

  Later in the evening, my own rage past, I reflected on my new approach to handling customer complaints. My response was the result of years of cumulative stress. The whole scene had been like a final pounding of the gavel that told me, “It’s time to leave.”

  That night as I passed the cemetery I looked toward Mary’s grave and whispered, “I think it’s time.”

  Mary and I had always thought we would work hard, get out of debt, retire early, and then enjoy doing some mission project to benefit others. In May of 2006, I made our last house payment. I took the envelope with the final payment to the hospital where Mary lay.

  “This is it, Mary. No more debt.”

  “That’s wonderful!” she replied.

  Wonderful, indeed, but what price had we paid? Within four months, my wife was dead. All those things we were going to do together were now impossible. We had spent a lifetime working toward that distant goal, making promises to ourselves that now we could never fulfill. Sure, it’s important to plan for the future, but think about this: You’ve had the gift of yesterday and you are living today with its choices and opportunities, but who knows if you will have tomorrow? You’ve heard it time and again, but I will tell you—and I know it’s true, because the painful lesson is etched into my yesterday—no one has a guarantee of tomorrow. That’s why it is so important today to tell our spouses and loved ones what they mean to us.

  On the night the enraged weight lifter faced the equally enraged restaurant manager, I took a look at my life. If I was serious about taking each day that God gave me and utilizing that day to help other people, then I would need to make a very difficult decision.

  Driving to work the next morning, I asked God for a sign, some confirmation that it was time to leave the restaurant.

  Early in my shift, I was called to the front desk. This time, the complainant was a middle-aged man delivering another profanity-laced tirade about the quality of our bacon. I curtly told him I would see what could be done about improving the lifestyle of the sacrificial hogs, and I walked away, shaking my head in disbelief that with all the problems facing humanity, I was dealing with a temper tantrum over pig fat!

  In two consecutive shifts, I’d encountered the two most difficult customers of my restaurant career. God, I know I asked You for a sign. But did You have to go this far? Of course, in my case, the shock treatment was probably necessary, because my fear of the unknown was greater than any discomfort in the present. It’s why we often stay in jobs we don’t find fulfilling and why people stay in abusive situations; we are frozen in place, unable to give up our known misery even for the promise of a happier tomorrow.

  There was no doubt that I needed to step away from my position, but I also realized how important my job was. It was my identity and my safety net. I knew by then that my unknown tomorrow would involve hiking the Appalachian Trail. What would people think of my giving up a good job to go hiking in the woods?

  The two customer encounters had brought everything into sharp focus for me, but there were also gentler pushes.

  I’m at the age where I read obituaries. Beyond checking to see who is gone, I find the content of obituaries fascinating. What did people accomplish in their allotted years? What was important in their lives? Those long lists of organizations and activities—are people truly living, or just filling their schedules?

  One day, with the two terror customers still raw in my memory, I finished reading that day’s obituaries and pictured someone reading a column about my own demise in the hopefully distant future. What did I want those lines to say? That I worked all my life and was found dead in my office chair, done in by some crazed weight lifter? No, I wanted something much more interesting—both for me in life and for the readers of my history—something like: “After a successful restaurant career, Mr. S retired early and followed his dream of thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail and writing a book about everything he learned.”

  I once again asked God about the wisdom of leaving my job. I was still debating, but a question waved in my mind, a quiet, gentle question that I’m convinced came from God. Would you give up your job if you knew I wanted you to?

  Of course I’d do it, was the automatic reply in my head.

  It’s time. Go. I will be there with you.

  The internal debate was over. I finally had the peace I needed to make this life-changing decision. I would quit my job. I would hike the AT. I would use the walk to deliver a message to men: Don’t take your spouse and family for granted. Enjoy today fully. Don’t assume you have tomorrow to tell your loved ones what they mean to you.

  I would deliver the message whenever I could. But I had no way of knowing that on the trail God would deliver an even greater message to me.

  ———

  One thing remained: my letter of resignation. Until this letter was written and sent, I could back away from this crazy idea. Even my dad, eighty-three years old and still working every day, questioned the wisdom of my decision.

  I wanted to begin my hike by the end of March, and my company required a two-month notice to have an orderly transition of management. I waited until the last possible day, and wrote the letter.

  I was convinced this decision was right; why was it still so difficult? I sat at my desk, the email to my boss composed, waiting on the computer screen in front of me. Fear and doubt paralyzed me; I could not hit that send button.

  Instead, I wandered through the restaurant on a pilgrimage of memories through every department: bakery, kitchen, banquet rooms, dining rooms, wait stations, dish room, hostess station, and even the Dumpster room. Long hours, customer complaints, and employee issues no longer filled my mind. Now I was reliving good times spent with great employees and wonderful customers. How could I survive without them? What was my life, if not the restaurant?

  I can’t quit.

  You must quit.

  Can’t.

  Must.

  For several hours I vacillated. During my years of managing this place, my decisions had always been predicated on what was best for the restaurant. Now at last the question was: What is right for me? With tears streaming down my face, I sat down at my desk once again and hit send.

  Every year, several thousand believers answer the call to make a pilgrimage from Springer Mountain, Georgia, to another mountaintop 2,176 miles away. Of these thousands, only several hundred are chosen to finish.

  Chosen? Yes. If you are ever one of those solitary Appalachian Trail thru-hikers and you somehow survive three hundred daunting mountains, precari
ous river crossings, difficult rock climbs, discouraging illness and loneliness, and punishing weather, and you stand at last at the summit of mighty Mt. Katahdin, then you will indeed know what it is to be one of those chosen few.

  You are then forever part of the brotherhood and sisterhood of the AT. Whether you are God-fearing, agnostic, or atheist, you are irrevocably changed. Some of the changed are better equipped to deal with society; some never find a place to fit. Only your trail brothers and sisters will understand the transformations within you. As much as you want friends and family to know how and why you have changed so dramatically, you cannot describe where your wilderness journey has taken you.

  But still, we try. More books have been written about the Appalachian Trail than any other trail in America. Something life-changing and unique happens to thru-hikers on the AT that makes this one trail almost mythical and compels us hikers to write about our journeys.

  I am convinced it’s all about community, our interaction with fellow hikers and those folks we meet in trail towns. It’s also about being alone, the solitude always coupled with knowledge that safe harbor is never too far away.

  ———

  There was much to do. Most hikers spend at least a year planning this hike; I had two months. Decisions about equipment, clothing, food, shoes, and water supply loomed large. Weight was a big factor. I’d carry everything on my back for the next five months. Twenty years before, comfort might not have been a consideration; but now my body demanded a vote on tent, sleeping pad, and sleeping bag. For every piece of equipment, I found so many different companies and models (all claiming superiority) that I felt overwhelmed by information.

  My smartest move was finding an outfitter with an employee who had completed a thru-hike. Based on his assurance that I would encounter cold and snow in April, I purchased a five-degree MontBell down sleeping bag. There are reasons to avoid down-filled bags, and in hindsight, I actually would not recommend them; but this heavy bag did keep me from turning into a popsicle on cold nights in the Smoky Mountains.