Solace of Nature

Whenever grief knotted me up, I headed for nature. Breathing the fresh air of the mountains, wandering through the woods, or sauntering along a river, uncluttered my mind and reopened my heart.

Nature asked little of me. It accepted me as I was, and invited me to share its community.

I could sit beside a river for hours and let the sounds of the undulating water soothe my struggles. I could wander in the forest’s shadows when the brightness of the day became too much. As I hiked over the mountains, I could physically work out my anger, frustrations, and find moments of happiness that pushed back against despair.

In the evening, I often sat in a meadow, or on the side of a mountain, and listened to the birds chatting to each other as their day winds down. I watched the bright yellow and orange colors of the sunset settle over the land, and soften to alpenglow’s red and purple. There, in the deepening darkness, I felt the companionship of others who grieve in the solitude of night.

For a time, I lost touch with nature’s transcendence. When I first returned to Yosemite six weeks after Evelyn’s death, I needed to get away from grief at home, but I ran into our memories of being there together, and they burned like bonfires, reminding me who was missing. That trip was a disaster and I ended up leaving early because it was too hard to be there without her.

On the morning I left, I carefully made my way through the darkness down to the river before dawn to say goodbye, not knowing if I would return. As the sun rose through a gap in the mountains, it sent a narrow beam of light into the valley and lit up the grove of green aspen trees across the river. I could see that the image was stunning, although I couldn’t feel its beauty inside. This told me that one day I would be okay, but I had to be patient with grief’s darkness and wait for the light to reach me. 

Thankfully, when I returned to Yosemite later in the year, I could feel awe for nature again. I was afraid that I had lost my last sanctuary. I marveled again at the power of 3000-foot-tall El Capitan, delighted in the cascading waterfalls, thrilled when coyotes and deer wandered by, and was wooed by the majesty of the giant sequoias. That trip I hiked every day from sunrise to sunset. After the first hour on the trail, the surface chatter of my thoughts calmed, and I could perceive the wilderness of grief. Surrounded by the wild, exuberant beauty of nature, I was aware of the presence of death.

As I watched carefully, I noticed that nature was constantly changing, even in mountains made of granite. Rockslides continued to come down and bury favorite trails and destroy animal habitats. Mirror Lake was filling in with sediment brought down by the river and becoming a meadow. Each spring the river flooded and adjusted its course. 

Our lives are always changing, too. People we love continue to die or move away. We start new jobs, discover new interests, and set old ones aside. And because of death, I’ve learned that the tasks I do are never as important as the compassion I share with others.