I never thought I’d ever hike again, much less make it to the top. But I’m here!
Ecstatic, I jumped up and screamed, “Woo-hoo!” flailing my arms.
Seconds later another hiker joined me. Embarrassed, I wondered if he’d heard me. We exchanged greetings, hollering over the howling wind. He seemed friendly, so I yelled out the significance of my being there.
He yelled back, “Congratulations!”
Yes, indeed. I deserved congratulations.
Doors were now wide open. I can hike anywhere I want! I revisited every trail in the Santa Rita Mountains. Hiking connected me to my twenty-year-old self—the strong woman who used to be a firefighter. My favorite trail to Florida Saddle, a tough, steep, rocky trek, didn’t offer views as grand as the trails to Mt. Wrightson, but here, Douglas firs reached their full potential, some so big it would take three people to wrap their arms around them. I greeted a familiar one and wrapped my arms around its ample girth. Thanks for waiting.
At the saddle, surrounded by these peaceful, majestic trees, I couldn’t help but think about my summers of fire in these very mountains. Despite everything that happened to me: discrimination, knee injuries, painful surgery, and even more painful recovery—I had no regrets. I’d discovered that when you love what you do, it’s not called work.
Someone asked me not too long ago if I missed firefighting. I’m not sure why I’d said “no,” because as soon as they walked away, I thought, of course I do. My time as a firefighter will always be an important part of who I am. I still feel nostalgia for the camaraderie, the excitement, the glamour, the hard work—all of it. I love to tell fire stories to anyone who will listen.
On the news, I hear that another wildfire rages out of control—over a hundred thousand acres. Fires get so much bigger now. Glued to the screen, I can’t look away. I hear that voice, feel that twinge, that says—
I want to go.
EPILOGUE
IN APRIL OF 1987, Eric called, bearing sad news. Glenn had died in his sleep the day before, at the age of fifty-seven. I hung up the phone and stood in shock for a moment before it registered. Glenn is gone. Although I hadn’t seen him since Joe and I moved from Madera, I experienced a deep, profound loss.
Also in the ’80s, Mark and I became friends again. This was important to me. I never could stop caring about someone I used to love, and I appreciated that he forgave me for all that transpired between us.
My marriage to Joe continued to be a difficult and rock-filled road. However, committed to stay with him, I spent many hours in front of many marriage counselors—sometimes with him, sometimes without, trying to mend what I thought could be fixed if only I tried hard enough. But finally, after a twenty-three year marriage, I realized that Joe’s violent, angry outbursts were not my fault, and that they were not going to end. This time, the major life change was my choice. Knowing it would not be easy, but knowing I couldn’t live like that anymore—in 2004, I told him I wanted a divorce. He took this extremely hard, as I’d worried he would; but only once did he ask me if we could try again. When he did, I shook my head “no.” I knew in my heart that I’d done everything in my power to make our relationship better, and “one more shot” wasn’t going to make any difference. I didn’t want to live my life wondering when he would punch another hole in the wall, or destroy yet one more inanimate object, or, worst of all, when he’d switch from hitting things to hitting me. I was tired of being treated like I wasn’t important enough for him to change his behavior. No more.
Whoever said that divorce is more painful than losing your partner to death was right. It is excruciating. But after the post-divorce dust settled, Joe and I began talking weekly. I wanted to. I didn’t hate him. We had so much history together. I wanted to keep him in my life—if he wanted to be there. Gradually, we established a friendship—far better than our marriage ever was. He showed me only his good side—the one I fell in love with.
Fast-forward three years: the economy collapsed, and my company laid me off. At the exact same time, my mom’s health rapidly declined after a series of strokes.
On a drizzly, cold, grey February afternoon, the hospice facility called to warn me she might not make it until morning. I called Joe, sobbing, and delivered the sad news. An hour after I hung up, he knocked on my door. We sat together in my kitchen, heads hanging low, not feeling a need to say one single word. The phone rang.
“She’s gone,” my sister said. I hung up the receiver and turned to Joe. He gathered me into his arms and stroked my hair while I wailed in pure, deep, utter despair.
It took a year for the rawness of her passing to ease. At this writing it’s been seven, and I still miss her every single day.
Over the next six years, Joe and I continued to exchange several phone calls a month, birthday lunches, holiday dinners—until the day he blindsided me, cutting off all communications because he found someone else. How had I missed this coming? What a stupid idiot I was, to think that it wouldn’t happen, that he would always love me. Even worse, a few months before this I’d actually wondered if we would get back together. Is it selfish of me to be hurt that he’s moved on? Maybe. I’ve quit trying to explain to friends why his ostracizing feels like he poured battery acid into my heart. If it’s selfish to miss someone you’ve been close to for decades, then so be it. I’m selfish. But I do find myself again asking this question again: how do you extract someone from your heart after they are firmly embedded there? I still don’t know, but I’m working on it—I have to. I have a life to live.
My decision to write this book came at a time when I needed to escape to the past, because the future looked so bleak. I thought it would help me to write about some of the best times of my life: the love and romance, fun, laughter … the challenging, but satisfying, work. It could boost my spirits. But it turned into much more.
Writing this book led me on a journey. I’ve been able to reflect on my fight to work in a field where I was not welcome, but how I never let that stop me from pursuing what I loved to do. I’ve reflected on past loves, and how many of those men still occupy a place in my heart, which makes me realize that I was, and still am, worth loving. I’ve reflected on losing my former career, finding a new one, then losing that one, too.
My friends say I’m amazingly strong and resilient—a true survivor. I protest—because many days I’m not feeling strong and wonder if my life will ever be better.
But you know what? There’s a little voice inside that I’ve finally started to listen to: I’ve made it through some really tough times before—enough to test anyone to the brink of giving up. Can I do it again? Maybe I already am. Three years after the layoff, I reinvented my career. I started my own landscape design business and began teaching classes in desert plant care. It’s wonderful to see my clients excited over my designs, and to see eager-to-learn faces in my classes. I should learn to trust what my friends say: I am strong enough. I will survive this tough time. Life will get better. And who knows, maybe I have room in my heart for one more love …
As the first woman firefighter at Florida, and among the first in the nation, I’d like to think that my perseverance and hard work made it easier for the women who followed me.
Back in the 1990s I’d read some encouraging news: some men consider women firefighters to be dedicated comrades and a team asset. My coworker Robert, at Florida Work Center, recognized that in 1976. Men work harder with women present on the crew, and women work even harder than the men in order to prove themselves (an inequality I still resent.) It’s also theorized that men take unnecessary risks, ones that women wouldn’t take. It is thought that the all-male Granite Mountain Hotshots, killed in the summer of 2013, left their safety zone feeling a need to reengage an active fire. Did they take an unnecessary risk? I wonder. No one will ever know what happened on that horrible day, because no one survived to tell the tale.
The reality? Discrimination is alive and well, and is perhaps one reason why only one-percent of all
firefighting jobs are held by women. It’s frustrating for me to see that the same outdated attitudes I faced over forty years ago still persist. The same sexist comments, the same disrespect, the same ostracizing. It’s as though attitudes are frozen in place and time.
Should women be firefighters? Why not? Sure, dangerous work isn’t for everyone. But if someone has what it takes, what difference does gender make? To this day, the all-woman Apache 8 crew are still highly revered elite wildland firefighters. I remember reading a short time ago that men have joined this crew. Now, isn’t that an interesting twist?
The fact is that each individual contributes their own knowledge, skills, and abilities. If everyone in the crew had identical abilities, then it would have duplicate strengths and weaknesses, making the weaknesses more pronounced. It makes sense that a diverse crew would cover the spectrum of strengths, cover each other’s weaknesses, and therefore be more complete. A fire crew is just that—a crew—a team, all working together for a common goal. And this goal is more readily achieved through the combined and varied strengths of all the members on that crew.
Linda Strader is a landscape architect in southern Arizona, the very same area where she became one of the first women on a Forest Service fire crew in 1976. Summers of Fire is a memoir based on her experiences not only working on fire crews, but how she had to find her courage and resiliency after losing her way. Her publishing history includes many web articles on her expertise of landscaping with desert plants. A local newspaper, the Green Valley News, printed an article about her firefighting adventures, which led the magazine, Wildfire Today, to publish an excerpt. The article generated interest in her speaking on this topic to several clubs, including the American Association of University Women.
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