Don’t Die for What You Love, Live for Those Who Love You
When people drop a seed of wisdom that grows into a new way of being
“They died doing what they loved,” people say at funerals. I’ve heard it, and you may have too. I once wished for it to be my epitaph. But it is a cruel consolation to someone who’s lost a person to a tragedy. Even if they died doing what they loved, how is it supposed to lessen the loss? It is no consolation at all. “Don’t die doing what you love, but live for those who love you,” a stranger taught me.
I watch her march for the creek, the hiking boots still on, but the jeans rolled up to her knees. Tall, slender, with a weathered daypack that has seen much rain and sun. She is comfortable on the trail. Hair in a ponytail, a buttoned flannel shirt, and arms swinging in rhythm to her gait. She is about to step into the stream.
“This is the only stream you cross on the loop. The next eight miles are dry,” I blurt. I am surprised, it is not my way to get into people’s business. But I know this trail. No need to schlep in soggy boots along the cliffs of Andrew Mollera Pacific Coast.
She looks at me. Her eyes are angry, unhappy to be pulled from her thoughtful solitude. Sorrowful eyes? She sees me in my bare feet, tying boots together to throw them over my neck. Her gaze relents, and she nods with a touch of thanks.
I cross the creek. The water, chilled by the cold December nights, splashes to my knees, wets a sliver of my pants. On the other side, I clean the sand off my feet and put on socks and shoes. I throw a covert glance across the creek, then throw a few more to watch her wade. She sits on a rock as far as she can be from me.
At the next intersection, I stop and think. Everyone goes right. The guidebook commands you so, unless you seek the torture of successive climbs. I think of the woman by the creek. She wants no company. She wants to grind through her own thoughts. She is a tourist. She will go right, so I turn left.
The third climb ascends to a view of miles to the south and to the north — the Pacific Ocean and the cliffs that frame it along Highway 1. The rocky shore was built by the tectonic geology to showcase the power of the crushing waves. This is Big Sur, and I love this place. I caught the need to feel its spirit from the fevered, alcoholic dreams of Kerouac’s book. I come here to bury the disappointments of personal mistakes, and it works each time.
“Sorry,” I hear behind me, “I did not want to startle you.” It’s her.
“Over there,” I point half a mile offshore, “you will see the whale spouts. You just have to wait. They are riding the California Current south to their winter home.”
She nods, and I set off. Another climb and then a choice. To the left is a hike through the redwoods, through the majesty of the thousand-year-old giants. They make me feel small but the right size on the scale of important things. To the right is a shortcut along the beach through the carved arches of limestone cliffs.
“Sorry,” I hear her again.
“No worries.”
“Do you know this place?” She asks. I nod. “If I walk the Redwood Trail, will I have time to come back on the beach before the tide rolls in?”
I check the watch. “Yes, but walk fast. You have two hours.”
I turn onto the beach. She walks to the trees.
The beach is empty. It is often so in the colder months. The tourists still come but loiter within a mile of the entrance. They are afraid of spots that sever the phone service and their link to phantom safety. So it’s just me.
I walk along the boulders and dash through stone hallways, impassible at high tide. I time the waves, then sprint through the openings before the next deluge floods the path. It feels like being a kid again.
I climb a rock and sit with a book, leafing through pages but not reading. It is like nervous foot-tapping some people do to manage their anxiety. I leaf through books.
In an hour, or maybe more, I look along the beach. The tide is coming. The water is licking boulders that were safely dry on my walk. That woman needs to hurry before the tide floods the archways and makes her climb the cliffs.
I leave and meander to my car, then to Fernwood. It is a lodge and a cafe, but an unassuming bar at night. It welcomes all but is home to locals who live in Big Sur. I sip my beer. Then she walks in. Of course, only a couple of places open this late for a stretch of miles. She nods at me, and I gesture to an open seat.
We drink beers, and we talk. She is on a solo trip from Colorado through a few states, but mostly California. Big Sur is beautiful, she says, and she will stay a week. We chat about hiking plans. She interrogates me about the trails. Tells me what she likes, and I tell her where she could go.
“Why are you out here?” I chance.
“This trip is a way to be alone.”
“Sorry to intrude.”
“No. Away from people who know me. From those who give advice.”
I do not pry.
“What trail are you doing tomorrow?” She asks as I am paying my bill.
“A connector from Tan Bark. It follows the crest of the coastal mountains. Going for the views.”
“May I join?”
I am quiet for a moment in surprise. Then I tell her the mile marker where we will meet.
The trail is gorgeous and abandoned. The tourists, the children, and the arguing spouses are at the waterfalls below, an arm’s length from their cars. They keep the noise with them. Only wind and birds are here.
We talk in spurts for a few minutes, then walk for half an hour in silence. I learn she has lost someone. The next day, on the next trail, I learn she thinks he died a terrifying death. The day after, I understand the depth of her loss, a husband, a friend, a soulmate. We hike in the afternoons and have a beer in the evenings. I go to my campsite. She goes to her truck that she parks on different turnouts dotting the highway along this scenic route. It is a perfect routine for people who are seeking time alone but need a few minutes with another to stay atop their internal gloom.
“So what happened?” I feel comfortable asking now. We are at dinner in a restaurant atop Big Sur. The New Year is a day away, and the crowds are back in their city homes, readying to meet it. Only a few people are on the patio, watching the fog drift over the Pacific.
She tells me. He loved the mountains. They shared that. He also loved being in them alone. He took a day every other weekend and backcountry skied the back slopes of the fourteeners. She asked him not to go alone — backcountry reliably kills solo skiers. But he needed to commune with the Rockies to reset his inner peace. Then he did not return. Not that night, not the next day. The search parties found avalanches, but the rescue dogs could not sniff a life underneath, nor could they find the body. An accident, everyone said. A tragedy. But she thought — a choice, to risk his life and to risk leaving hers in shambles. She harbored anger. And she thought of his last minutes, immobile under the pressure of the snowpack with his own terror. Conflicting, guilty, devastating thoughts. So much forfeited, for him and her. Then, the funeral in absentia and the stream of misguided comforts: “He died doing what he loved.” What the fuck, she said.
I listen and feel a rising guilt. A stream of hobbies: skydiving, whitewater kayaking, mountain climbing, hang gliding, in service to my need to touch a deeper meaning or find a path to overcome fear. All noble in my mind until this night.
She shines a light on the ugly, selfish drive. All risks I took, thinking them my own. But they never were only mine. They were the risks I imposed on my ex-wife, my young son, my friends, and my employees. Doing what I loved and forgetting to live for those who love me, for those who need me.
The next day is our last. She will be driving south, and I will be driving north. We beat through a dense path I know. The brambles catch the skin and tear clothes. Keep following, it is worth it. She does.
The path spills onto rocks piled in a terrace around a breathing pool. The pool exhales a cloud of white mist each time a strong wave powers into the channel connecting it to the ocean and pressures the water upwards. The mist drifts at the cliffs, wets the rocks, then runs down in tiny rivulets back into the pool. It’s a spectacle I can watch for days. Three seals across agree.
“It is dispiriting. After almost a year, everything still feels empty. Nothing makes a difference,” she says without self-pity. An observation.
“The point is that you are making a difference.”
“I don’t feel it.”
“Sometimes you touch a person with a random word, a story, or a patient silence that lets them say their piece. You leave a little seed that grows into a new way of being. And you don’t even know. You have a story to share. You have the wisdom to give. And someday you may read of the difference you made in their life because you were there.”
I wonder if I should confess that I represent what she despises. But I don’t, because I feel I will not be that man for much longer. Thank you for the new path.
— This story occurred over 10 years ago. The encounter had a profound impact on my worldview. Sometimes, it is okay to open the door to an opportunity by doing something out of character, like blurting out unsolicited advice.