Ashton and Elder Gardner on their own beautiful trail in Fiji
We’ve had a date with Mount Graham since last year at about this time. I wrote a post about it on September 9, 2014, titled Beautiful Landscapes of the Creator. I remember drinking in God’s beauty and peace then. It quenched our thirsty souls and gave us a needed respite from the overwhelming grief we felt at that time. We wanted to feel that same feeling again. But, it was a different experience this time, although the mountain was still beautiful and peaceful.
We were able to spend most of one day there hiking up to Heliograph Lookout Point, a point that is about 10,000 feet in elevation. The day was overcast and cool. The scenery on the hike was not what I expected it to be. There had been a fire in that area and for much of the hike we were in a graveyard of aspen and pine trees. At first I was disappointed and on the way back down the trail, I remember thinking, “I’m having to look really hard to find the beauty here.”
Looking at the big picture, all I could see was the burned, dead or wounded trees. But as I looked closely, right along our path, I did find the beauty I longed to find. The sweet forest things I love to see. There were tons of wild raspberry bushes along the trail. I ate some for Ashton. He loves raspberries! Most were sour, but we did find some sweet ones. We saw little purple, yellow and red flowers. We saw hummingbirds and squirrels. We heard some wild turkeys in the distance but never saw them. There were also a lot of wild mushrooms coming up from the ground and growing on the trees… many different species of mushrooms and fungus… some of which were big and interestingly-shaped. There were different-sized rocks along the trail, creating little burrows where I imagined little animals living, providing shelter from the elements. We even got sprinkled on that day. I started searching for a thicket that would shelter us. Luckily we didn’t need it because the rain stopped. That experience made me start singing, “Drip, drip, drop little April showers…” from Bambi! I would whistle it off and on throughout the hike!
I realized that I still found beauty there, even among the disorder of the fallen and blackened trees. Even though it wasn’t what I expected to see that day, I still found little joys and things that made my heart happy.
We’ve had to do that very thing as we’ve waded through the grief of Ashton’s death. We didn’t expect Ashton to die and leave us with the temporary disorder and wounded state we found ourselves in. It’s easy to let our personal graveyard experience be the big picture in our lives and forget all the beauty God has put along our path here on the earth. It’s so easy to let that very thing happen.
Carter and I are functioning well now. Our family is doing as well as can be expected. We all still have our struggles. We are helping each other through the struggles that come up. Perhaps we look like we are doing pretty well from the outside. Carter and I are definitely doing better than we were a year ago.
This time, up on the mountain, we didn’t feel the weight of grief as we felt last year. The experiences of last year were what we needed then. I do believe what we experienced this year was exactly what was needed for us now. God knew what we needed. He always knows that. I love it that He does.
Written by Faye