Epic Solitude

by Katherine Keith

  The dogs know something is wrong. I try to hide my distress from them, but after conquering close to seven hundred miles together in seven days, that just isn’t possible. Like a tidal wave, all the agony, grief, guilt, and shame from my past swells into an insurmountable tidal wave. It all comes crashing down. Our race is over, Loki will not make it, and it is my fault. In my state of exhaustion, flashbacks come in rapid succession.

  I am a destroyer of everything around me with my unquenchable hunger for something more—something that even I don’t understand.

  It is my fault that my newborn daughter Madi died, this month, thirteen years ago. What right do I have putting precious life in harm’s way? My endless hunger for the wilderness seems poor justification. My need for adventure, remoteness, and solitude resulted in their deaths. How can I make others suffer?

  The blood dripping from Madi’s nose and from the corner of her tiny mouth—the blood dripping from Loki’s nose onto the pristine snow—pressing my palms into Madi’s fragile chest over and over, praying that the CPR would make her breath again. I scream into the empty air with no help for miles in any direction.

  The dogs know a veil between worlds has ripped open. They know I have succumbed to a different reality—one that carries a risk. They slow their pace, unsure of what to do. At moments, I break out of my living nightmare to realize the team has stopped. I run along the sled to get the team moving down the trail again.

  The screams of my young daughter Amelia that had sent me flying off the roof, where I was trying to fix a leak—finding her, face covered in blood, nose split open—the jagged tear in her flesh—Amelia screaming in pain. My choice to stay out at camp on my own with my baby daughter after my husband had died in a frozen sea. All my choices cause every living thing around me pain.

  It is twenty-five below zero and my whole body shivers. I sink into a dangerous despair, but don’t care. This not caring is a feeling familiar from long ago, when I considered myself such a poison that I cut myself.

  Blood on the razor blade—crimson drips on the hardwood floor. Memories of abuse forcing their way into my daily life and having flashbacks in the middle of a shopping mall. Nightmares of horror-filled images and never being safe. Lashing out at Josh in bed when all he wants to do is hold me.

  I want to fall asleep in the snowbank and not wake up. But my dogs need me to keep going to reach the food and straw that await them in Unalakleet. I must search for the next stake.

  I stand on the sled runners as we make our way through the unforgiving landscape. I feel the echoes of pain in my breasts hardened with milk in Madi’s absence. Her life is void because of my mistake. Now I’ve taken Loki’s because I missed something—some flip of his ear or change in his gait that should have clued me in to his trouble. I missed something because I’m not good enough. I have no right to be playing with the lives of my faithful companions. Admitting that I am a failure does not even touch the horror caused by my neglectful behavior. The scale on which I inflict hurt on those I love goes far beyond failure and into a realm of living hell. My love is a death sentence.

  Seventeen hours after leaving Kaltag, we make it to Unalakleet where I discover that a snow machine met Lance on his way into town and took over carrying Loki in. A team of volunteer race vets took care of Loki and kept him alive. They monitored his lungs and made sure there are no other health problems. Loki is now fine. He inhaled a piece of straw. After hours of running, it caused a vein in his nasal cavity to rupture, which then bled down into his lungs. The outward sign of which was him bleeding from the nose. The fact that Loki survived does little to pull me out of the despair I know is mine to carry.

  Starting Over

  Anchorage, Alaska | 2005

  The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in

  injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of

  the world, the Master calls the butterfly.

  —Richard Bach

  “Well, Cindy, time to buy a car,” I say with a positive voice that doesn’t match my grim expression.

  “Yay,” she says. “What kind do you want?”

  Cindy came back to Kotzebue a couple months ago to help pack up camp and move me to Fairbanks. I look around at the Affordable Used Cars lot in Anchorage and say, “I have no clue. What do you think?”

  “A truck!”

  Happy to have direction, we walk toward a couple of big-looking rigs, when a salesman comes out. Cindy, Amelia, and I walk away hoping to avoid conversation. Big fail.

  “What brings you three fine ladies to Anchorage?”

  Cindy and I glance at each other trying to not laugh.

  “We’re looking for a truck we can use in Fairbanks,” I say.

  “What are you going to do in Fairbanks?”

  “I enrolled at the University of Alaska, where I received a financial aid package.” Hint, hint—I have little cash. “I am throwing myself into the new challenge of college.”

  “Good for you!” he says. “College mom. Got it.” He backs away inch by inch.

  Overwhelmed, I realize that we want his help to get a decent car. “We flew in from Kotzebue this morning, where we live out at a camp,” I say. This isn’t helping our cause any.

  “What will you do?” Cindy whispers, “Trade him a dogsled for a car?”

  I suppress a laugh and say, “Maybe a few caribou hides?”

  The salesman peers at us, curious and intrigued. “Live at camp by yourself?”—in other words, where is the husband and/or baby daddy?

  “Yes, my husband died last year.” This is a great conversation killer and works to stop that line of inquiry. “As a single parent, I have to plan for a future that can provide for my kiddo. Time to get a solid education.”

  “Let me show you around the lot,” he says. “Where are you staying? I ask because some Fairbanks cabins are remote and off-road.”

  “The three of us will live in campus housing to start. It’s all about the running water. Plus automatic electric heat.” Even saying it feels spoiled, and I already miss camp.

  Cindy senses my change in mood and jokes, “I’m sure before long she’ll move us all into a log cabin in the middle of nowhere with a woodstove and no running water.”

  The salesman laughs and says, “I recommend a truck with block heater, oil pan heater, and battery blanket. It’s your lucky day. I have just the thing.”

  We walk with him to look at a large maroon extended-cab diesel GMC truck.

  “Oh no,” I say at the same time Cindy says, “Oh yes!”

  Amelia joins in with, “Yay!” Her vocabulary is still developing.

  I am overruled. “Looks good,” I say. “How much?”

  “Don’t you worry about that. I’ve got ideas to bring the price right on down for you.”

  Two hours later, after signing my life away, we drive off the lot in what I feel is an oversized yet useful vehicle. I am eager to get on the road to Fairbanks today. It has been a long couple of days preparing to leave camp. The boat ride to town was rough. I found a trailer in Kotzebue to pull the boat up out of the water, but the process was not seamless. At least I won’t have to worry about it getting stuck during freeze-up while I am out of town.

  A trip to Wal-Mart gains us critical items for Amelia, such as a car seat. Road trips rule when driving 360 miles across Alaska. I have not been to Fairbanks. On our way out of town, we stop to gas up.

  Cindy glances at the headlines of the daily paper: Fairbanks Fires. Evacuations. “Kat, have you seen this?”

  I shake my head and grasp the paper to read the details of what is going on. “It can’t be that bad,” I say, determined and stubborn. “We have to check it out.”

  The first 200 miles up to Fairbanks are gorgeous. It is likely the last 150 miles are the same, but visibility is below a quarter mile from thick smoke.

  �
��Maybe we should have waited a couple days,” Cindy says.

  Classes start in a couple of days, and we have a lot to do to get ready.

  “Life waits for no one. It’ll be better in Fairbanks,” I say.

  I should know by now that ignorant optimism isn’t always the best planning strategy. In Alaska that year, 4.7 million acres of forest burn—the third-worst fire year in the state’s history. The EPA issues a hazardous air quality warning for five days, cautioning people to avoid outdoor exertion and keep kids inside. Welcome to Fairbanks.

  We first live in campus housing, which has the convenience of running water. That, combined with automatic electric heat, feels way too upscale for me. As Cindy predicted, I move us into a series of cabins that have woodstoves and either no running water or water pumped in by truck to an underground storage tank. But all of them still have the luxury of electricity, quite the novelty after the hard-won, intermittent power available at camp.

  Cycles of Grief

  Fairbanks, Alaska | 2004–2007

  Between grief and nothing I will take grief.

  —William Faulkner

  The first years after Dave’s death I survive, stuck in denial, numbness, avoidance, and shame. My grieving process borders on bipolar. I have weeks of intense productivity at school and work followed by weeks of remorse, unforgiving depression, and isolation. Shame holds my soul prisoner. Flashbacks of Madi’s death recur at regular intervals and with increased intensity during the months of her birth and death.

  I stay true to a path leading to a meaningful life with Amelia. I strive every day to rise above the shadow of mourning to parent with happy devotion. The life sparkling in her eyes pulls me away from despair and into the present moment. She makes it easy to build a future and generate new memories. Amelia’s well-being takes priority. Her spunky and creative personality grows by the day, and I know how fortunate I am to have such a perfect young girl to call my daughter.

  Lacking a heartfelt dream to work towards, I focus on achieving practical milestones. My degree is a means to an end and a way to put one foot in front of the other. I get my Emergency Medical Technician I, II, and III certifications to arm myself with knowledge for the next time disaster strikes. I work toward my bachelor’s degree. I create an interdisciplinary degree program in renewable energy engineering that combines computational physics and electrical and mechanical engineering with renewable energy modeling. I overachieve to compensate for my perceived failures.

  I date random men and leave a trail of relationship chaos as my heart can never commit. Well-meaning men want to love and help Amelia and me. I try to go along with it, hoping my heart will come back to life, but then it shuts down, leaving them feeling used. I even get engaged to a wonderful, patient man who loves and accepts Amelia. He proposes on a hunting trip in the Brooks Range. Talk about a dream come true. But I destroy that relationship too, feeling I don’t deserve a new dream yet.

  One old dream I can pursue is being a pilot. This dream began when reading Arctic Daughter at age ten, but I set it aside because Dave didn’t trust small, single-engine airplanes. In Kotzebue, flying will allow me to peruse river bluffs and spot mammoth ivory from above. Now it was time to pursue my license. I go home to stay with Mom in Minneapolis and work on it during a two-month stay.

  My first time soloing is in a Cessna 172 in the Anoka County Airport in Minneapolis in 2007. I have the required sixteen hours of flight time, and the goal is for me to take a forty-minute solo flight. Ten minutes away from the airport, I hear a loud bang and feel rattling in the engine. Not being versed in airplane mechanics, I come close to peeing my pants. I turn the plane around, hoping I can make it back to the airport. Knowing I lack sufficient skill, I don’t want to attempt an emergency landing on my first solo flight. I execute the practiced diligence in safe piloting by planning out emergency procedures and landings. I land back at the Anoka Airport. The flight school mechanics find a cracked piston. The next day I am back in the air, flying above the clouds practicing slow flight maneuvers. Rip that Band-Aid off.

  It only requires forty hours of flight time to get your license, and that’s what I do. I absorb the material, and the written exams are easy for me. With minimal actual flight time, the practical exam is stressful, but I perform the required flight maneuvers on the first try and get my license.

  A float rating requires a ten-hour flying-time endorsement by a certified float-rating instructor. In Fairbanks, I get my float rating, which qualifies me to take off and land in water. This is my favorite type of flying. I practice touch-and-goes at a seaplane base in Fairbanks with Amelia seat-belted in the back. We can take the airplane up and find anywhere to land. There are lakes everywhere of sufficient length for landing and taking off. I love learning how to read the waves and know what the wind is doing based on how the water looks from high above.

  Eager to surround myself with aviation, I work as a ramp agent at an airline called Warbelow’s that serves Interior Alaska villages. I load and unload airplanes. I want to fly as a commercial pilot. Being around airplanes and learning about the business is important. I am promoted to the dispatch office and work as a Part 135 dispatcher. I attend a six-week program in Galena, Alaska, to become a Part 121 dispatcher, which enables me to dispatch for large airlines such as Alaska Airlines.

  While in Galena, I meet Captain Bill and his wife, Sue, who take Amelia and me under their wings. Bill lands me a job at Frontier Airlines. We all become close friends for many years.

  After working as a dispatcher, I see how difficult it is for the pilots. They have no regular schedules. When they are grounded because of weather, they don’t get paid. There are long layovers they have no control over. It is plain that this is not a solution for me with a young child.

  Cassie comes up to Fairbanks to stay with Amelia and me for the summer. Cassie is still in high school and having this solo time with her is a gift. She learns how to drive in our bright-yellow jeep with a stick shift. We take the top off, put Amelia in a car seat in the back, and drive through the backroads of Gold Stream Valley. Amelia urges Cassie to drive through the mud puddles as fast as she can. Cassie and Amelia hang out while I work and attend classes. Amelia is lucky to have such phenomenal aunties.

  I float from one achievement to the next. Occasionally I break out of my self-diagnosed bipolar grief cycle, move toward acceptance, and make a new plan for life. I search for meaning in what happened. Still, the ups and downs around key anniversaries continue to destroy anything positive in our lives. It is difficult to gift yourself with the time to grieve, but at some point, I will have to. I don’t let go of the shared dream Dave and I built, but I need to redefine a few of its elements.

  Home Again

  Kobuk Lake, Alaska | 2008

  The clearest way into the Universe

  is through a forest wilderness.

  —John Muir

  Landing back in Kotzebue, a sudden feeling of excitement rushes through me. My body knows I am closing in on home. On the flight over, I can see the expansive north shore of Kobuk Lake, and if I squint hard enough, I can almost make out our cabin. Amelia, now four-years-old, has her own airplane seat. Never being one to sleep on airplanes, she is wide awake and ready to get off the plane.

  It will be a busy and difficult day. Things never come easy in keeping equipment running above the Arctic Circle. The boat is going back in the water for the first time this year. I last parked our old Dodge truck a half mile from the airport. Rather than wait at the airport to visit with old friends, Amelia and I walk to get the truck started. I cross my fingers, hoping the engine turns over. Nothing. I take out the jumper cables from behind the seat and open the hood. After a couple of minutes, Dickie Moto pulls over. He says hi to Amelia, who remembers him. Together, we get the truck started, and I go back to the airport to get our six totes of supplies for the month ahead.

  The next chore is to get the b
oat in the water. This easy task is challenging with Amelia. It is a gorgeous mid-July day. The sun is high in a clear blue sky, and it will remain light out around the clock for a couple more weeks. A few preventative chores can keep the outboard running longer. I change the spark plugs and the oil on the lower unit while the boat is out of the water. Amelia helps by distributing tools around the ground and making mud pies. With summer comes mosquitoes, and I douse us good with as much deet as I can find. My parenting can come into question later, when she isn’t being threatened with endless swollen, itchy welts.

  I sit Amelia in the truck as I back our boat into the protected lagoon behind Kotzebue. Telling Amelia to sit down in the truck seat, I run out back to jump onto the boat. In my mind, many things happen to Amelia while I am stuck on the boat parking it: Amelia falls off the seat and hits her head. Amelia puts something in her mouth and chokes. Amelia somehow turns the truck on and puts it in neutral; it rolls into the water, and she drowns. I stop. My plan will not cut it.

  I get back into the truck to give her a great big hug and reevaluate. “Amelia, how would you like to go for a short boat ride?”

  How are we going to do this? I already have my hip boots on, but the water is too deep to walk out and put her into the boat. If I had my chest waders from camp, I could make that work. I sit in the truck for about twenty minutes, thinking through my options, when along comes Uncle Lee McClain. Uncle Lee is a local bone hunter, ivory carver, knife maker, and gunsmith who loves to spend his summers in his inflatable raft scouring the beaches for mammoth teeth and other items of interest. He is Alaskan to the core. While not a blood relation, Amelia has her Uncle Lee wrapped around her little finger, and the two of them are like peas in a pod. Lee already has plans to teach Amelia to shoot and has her first .22 ready.