Finding Jim (17 page)

I bite my lip and nod to let her know that I will try. I have so many doubts and fears. My biggest fear is that Jim is really dead.

MONDAY, MAY 10, 1999

I get up quickly from the park bench when I see Patti approach and hug her. Her presence reassures me. The fact that she has survived gives me hope that I will too. We walk along the beach together. It has been six years since Dan was killed on
K2
.

I hug myself and look at Patti. “I just feel like I was on the highest, most beautiful mountain in the world, and then I came crashing down. And I'll never be able to climb that mountain again.”

Patti leans around to look me in the eye. “You and Jim did share a beautiful mountain. But there are other mountains, not necessarily better or worse, just different. You'll climb other mountains.”

“I don't know how to do this. Sometimes I think of how Jim would handle it if the situation were reversed, if I had been killed. He would know what to do.” I feel insecure, sorry for myself.

Patti stops and grabs my arm, “Jim would have been devastated.” Somehow this makes me feel better.

“It has taken me a long time to realize it, but I am angry at Dan, and at Jim. I am angry that they chose to mountaineer. They didn't have to. They could have done something else.” Patti looks set in her opinion, and I have no idea how to respond nor do I want to. I don't feel angry with Jim.

That afternoon, Patti and I go to see a well-known channeller, someone who communicates with spirits, in one of the Vancouver hotel ballrooms. I've just finished reading
Journey of Souls
, in which grief-struck people are reassured and relieved by contacting their dead loved ones through hypnotism.

There must be over a thousand people in the bright, white-walled room. We sit in foldout chairs and wait. A microphone stands in the middle of the two sections of seats, and a large platform is set up at the front of the room. When the plump middle-aged psychic with permed long blonde hair with dark roots walks onstage, the applause bounces off the ceiling and walls. I can see her mascara from where I sit near the back. She talks of life and the afterlife rather than death. The spirit prevails. Death is not to be feared. I listen. I fantasize about walking up to the audience microphone and telling her about Jim. She would cry at the depth of our love and call Jim back. His voice would resonate in the room: I love you, Sue, and I'll never leave you. I am okay.

I choke back tears at the thought.

Question time comes and the first brave soul approaches the microphone. My palms sweat. She coughs and sputters her words. I want someone to hold her hand, cheer her on. A month ago, her husband and son were killed in an automobile accident. She grips the microphone with both hands. She wants to know if they are okay. She waits, crying.

The psychic asks rhetorically, “They died of chest wounds?”

“Yes,” the widow cries.

“They're fine,” the psychic says, “just fine. Nothing to worry about. They've gone to the afterlife. No limbo for them. All good.”

I tense and expect the psychic at any moment to say, “Next.” The widow mumbles a thank you and stumbles to her seat. I don't hear the rest of the grievers. Do I feel uncomfortable because I don't believe the psychic or because she accepts death so easily? I want to believe anything that will bring Jim back to me. I want her to bring Jim back to life. Applause fills the space when she is finished. I drive quietly back to Whistler.

That night, when I watch the evening news, there is a special about the hypnotist Dr. Michael Newton, the author of
Journey of Souls
. The interviewer asks him how he contacts the deceased, and he explains. The next interview is with one of his clients who performed on his television show. The client admits he was planted in the audience and told what to say.

The final interview is with the author of the book
Why People Believe
. We believe because we are human. We need something to believe in. And sometimes we believe because we are terrified of losing who we are.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 19, 1999

The phone rings many times a day. Sometimes I answer it.

“Hello?”

“Hi, is Jim Haberl there please?”

I stay silent and wonder if this is a joke.

“Hello?”

“May I ask who is calling?”

“My name is Bruce, and Jim very generously agreed to talk to me about photography.”

It's not a joke. He just hasn't heard. “Jim was killed in an avalanche on April 29.”

“Oh, my God. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.”

“Thank you.”

After I hang up I press the button to listen to the message recording. “You have reached Jim and Sue's place. Please leave a message and we'll get right back to you.” I press the button over and over to hear Jim's voice until I am bawling. I take out the cassette and put it in my drawer of memorabilia and record a new message on a different tape.

I gather my courage to drive to the post office to pick up a package that has been sent to me from my childhood friend Heather who lives in Chicago. I brush my hair, but I wear the same clothes, Jim's jeans and shirt, that I've worn for days. As I stand in line waiting, my body odour seeps through my sweater. Whistler is a small town. I wonder if everyone there knows that I am a grieving widow. When it is my turn, the clerk gives me my package and says in a hushed voice, “I've been thinking about you.” I mumble a thank you and keep my head down as I leave so that people won't see me crying.

The outing has left me exhausted, so I curl up in bed with the new book Heather has sent me,
Living When a Loved One Has Died
, by Earl Grollman. The four chapters contain a series of poems with just a few words per line, and my brain is able to digest the information without feeling overwhelmed. By dinner I have read all four chapters: Shock, Denial, Recovery, A New Life. I do not feel so alone in my grief, because the author acknowledges how death has shaken my faith, how there are no answers, how I feel numb, panicked, guilty, depressed, utterly lost and that all of these emotions are normal responses to grief. For the next five years, I read the book over and over.

Some evenings I watch sad movies to unleash my tears. In
Ghost
, when Patrick Swayze's character returns from the dead to visit his widowed wife (Demi Moore), I can almost feel him caressing her skin and kissing her neck. I want more than anything to feel Jim's touch. In
Truly, Madly, Deeply
, the dead husband comes back to live with his widowed wife, and she is over the moon with happiness. But he brings his dead friends, and they stay up all night and keep the house temperature unbearably warm. His goal is to be such a pain that she will move on and let go. I don't like the ending because my dream is to have Jim back, forever. I wonder how I will recover.

One day the phone rings. “Hello.” I clench my teeth and grab a pencil to finger.

“Hi, Sue, it's Marti Henzi, from Whistler Heli-Skiing. How are you?”

“Hi, Marti. Fine.” I tap the pencil on the counter.

“Look, I'm so sorry about Jim. He had that very rare ‘star' quality. I feel honoured to have worked with him. I wanted to tell you that our black lab, Solo, just had puppies. And you know in times of trouble, I've always had a dog, and that has really helped me. Solo has seven pups and one of them is white. The white one reminds me of Jim; he's so kind and gentle. I believe he is special. We would like you to have him.”

I stop tapping the pencil. “Wow, thank you very much. I don't know, you know, I'm having a hard time just looking after myself these days. I don't know about looking after a puppy.”

“There's no rush. We'll keep him until you're ready.”

I hang up and lay my head on the counter.

A friend comes to stay with me and urges me to go see the puppy. When we arrive, the puppies are a mass of white, black and brown fur romping in the dirt yard, snatching at a rope dangling from a tree. Some have long, hound-like ears and others have short ears that stand up. The litter is a mix of bloodhound and Labrador retriever. The only white puppy waddles toward me. He looks like a lab. I put my hands down for him to lick and then scoop him up into my lap. His belly bulges warm and taut under my hand. He wiggles to get close enough to lick my face. I smell earth. He stares at me with amber-brown eyes.

“He's so cute! Come on, let's take him home today.” My friend smiles.

“Not yet. I can't do it yet.” I give the pup a kiss on the head and let him go.

THURSDAY, JUNE 3, 1999

“Are you sleeping?” My family physician sits opposite me in her office, an arm's length away, and looks me in the eye.

“A bit. I have trouble falling asleep and then wake up in the night. Some nights I don't sleep at all.” My armpits feel wet. My words are foreign. I've always been such a sound sleeper. I don't tell her that some days I don't get out of bed until 1 p.m.

“Are you eating?” She rests her pencil on her notepad.

“Sometimes. I feel nauseous. The food tastes thick.” I've lost more than six kilograms since Jim was killed. I seek the twisting pain of hunger. It feels real and is a welcome change from the numbness.

“Have you thought about suicide?” She holds my gaze.

I pause. I have wondered. Sleeping pills or slit wrists in the bathtub? But too many people love me. And I worry that if there is an afterlife I won't be allowed to see Jim if I take my own life.

“Yes. But I can't do it. It makes no sense to me because I would be leaving my loved ones with the same pain I am trying to escape.” I rattle off my standard answer, looking at the wall.

“I see. Are you seeing a counsellor?”

“A friend set up an appointment for me a few weeks ago. I saw the counsellor once. She said it was too soon for me to be in regular counselling.”

My doctor rests her hand on the arm of my chair. “You're strong, tough, and you'll get through this, but it won't be easy. You're too young to have to deal with this.”

I am 33 years old. I have little experience with death. I take a breath and launch forth, “I feel crazy, as if I'm floating parallel to reality with a very real notion that something is terribly wrong. I feel so anxious because I believe that if I can fix this terrible wrong somehow, we will have our life back.” I look up at her from downcast eyes. There, I've said it. Now she can tell me I am going crazy.

“If you keep having this feeling, I think you should see a counselor, and I would suggest seeing someone who doesn't know you and who didn't know Jim. Someone objective. A friend of mine was at Jim's memorial service, and she said how brave you were. You don't have to be superhuman, you know. You can fall apart.” She nods her head and creases the skin between her eyebrows – her grief brow.

I drop my shoulders and fiddle with my jacket. My body would slide to the floor if I let it. If I let myself fall apart, how would I put myself back together again?

FRIDAY, JUNE 11, 1999

No life insurance. No mortgage insurance. No steady job. Back home in Whistler, I stare at the stack of bills.

When Jim and I signed the final mortgage papers, the bank representative asked whether we would like mortgage insurance. Jim faced me, eyebrows pinched. He said, “I think it's a good idea given how difficult it is for a mountain guide to get life insurance. What do you think?”

“What does it mean?” I shifted to face him.

“It means that if one of us dies, then the mortgage is paid off, no questions,” he answered.

I slapped my hands on my thighs and guffawed, “We don't need that!” We had just married, built a house and planned to raise a family. Death was not in my plans.

I curse Jim for leaving me in a lurch. I chastise myself for turning down the mortgage insurance, for giving up my biweekly teacher's paycheque to move to Whistler and for becoming financially dependent on Jim.

Still, I am on leave with the Vancouver School Board, so I am eligible for a full-time position in Vancouver that pays well. There is an opening for an outdoor education teacher, a position in a program called Trek that in the past I would have coveted. I struggle, wondering whether or not to apply.

Every so often, the image of Jim's body at the funeral home crawls into my consciousness. My brain knows he is dead, but my heart argues that he is still alive. If I teach in Vancouver, our house in Whistler will be empty during the week. What will happen if I'm not there and Jim comes home? Maybe if I am not home, Jim won't come back. I need to be here. Who will keep the house exactly as Jim left it so he will recognize it when he comes home? But if I don't get work, I might have to sell the house.

Friends help me fill in the job application.

Dad drives me to Prince of Wales High School in Vancouver, where I graduated 15 years before. We sit in those institutional chairs outside the principal's office waiting to be called for my interview. Every now and then Dad pats my leg and nods wordless encouragement. At my feet lies a sports bag full of binders exemplifying my ability to create curriculum, to lead youth in the outdoors and to teach. The former head Trek teacher, Dave, stops on his way to my interview to say hello, holds my hand for a moment and reassures me that I need not worry, they will be gentle. I feel naked and as fragile as an eggshell.

The secretary ushers me into the principal's office, where three beige leather chairs are arranged in a semicircle. The principal rises: “Hello, Sue, come in. I'm Andrew.” He shakes my hand and gestures to the others, “You already know Dave, and this is Lynn.” They get up, shake my hand and thank me for coming. They knew Jim. I sit on the edge of the empty chair and they take turns asking me questions.