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Tue 23 Aug, 2005 09:47 pm
I've posted on this before here,
and am not without fault in that process.
However, I am still with almost no place to vent,
and need to talk.
When I first posted on this I didn't want to traumatize friends or relatives and, well, never mind..
At this point they mostly know, and are traumatized. Her death is still not in the papers and maybe never will be.
Our friend died hiking, breaking an ankle, splinting it, and then a femur, not being able to crawl to her truck, and writing a few notes from her backpack. I could be more specific but you'd just cry. She was found, I surmise, close, but not enough, to her truck.
Apparently she wasn't missed, as with what might happen with at least some of us - for fifteen days.
She had a painting show coming up, and that was what the hike was about.
She was a not an incompetent hiker.
There is a quiet thread about her in the art forum, but I sooooo don't want to flag anyone googling her to see this topic, at least at present, or some other stuff.
I don't want to push anyone to answer here, as I assume, especially from some pm's, some sympathy, but to log this experience.
Please, if any of you go to the thread in the art forum, don't go post about the difficult parts - as that is where I name her and relatives/friends may read.
Feel free on the other hand to speak straight here.
To answer what has been on my own mind,
I found out this afternoon that her body was found intact.
Any untimely death is upsetting. Your friend's death is exceptionally hard to accept because she fought for survival and all her effort was useless.
Please accept my sympathy.
I found out this evening that she wrote a quick will in charcoal..
what was there.
Someone I've talked to about this said that dehydration isn't the worst death. I've been picturing more in my mind, re animal life, while she was still alive - but I guess she landed on stones, or.. well, I don't know.
She was happy hiking. I've just had trouble envisioning..
well, now you understand my need to post.
Re: dealing with near and hard death
ossobuco wrote:Apparently she wasn't missed, as with what might happen with at least some of us - for fifteen days.
This a very sad story on many levels. I'm sorry for yourself, her family and friends. This is a hard thing to go through for someone you love and care about.
It's really sad that she wasn't missed for 15 days as well. I take it that she lived alone? It's too bad she didn't give someone an itinerary of her hiking plans. It might have made all the difference. I wouldn't have thought someone could perish from the injuries that she had suffered.
Reyn, she was a person of the north north, she hiked often all the time. And dragged along her painting paraphenalia. Even up and down cliff type trails. When she showed with us, the paintings were from a hike into a hard to get to creek, where she spent weeks.
She had a problematic situation with family, of which I only know and could not possibly guess at, very much not my business. What I know from today, they mourn her.
Your post reminded me of my first experience with the death of someone my age.
October, 1956. "J" and I were both college freshmen. I didn't know her well, but I could match name and face.
"J's" high school boyfriend felt that higher education--particularly for women--was a waste of time. He had told "J" either we get married right away or you'll never see me again.
That October afternoon he made a date, "To say goodbye." He drove her to a country road, shot her and then killed himself.
She wasn't dead. She managed to open the car door and crawl nearly a half a mile before she died.
She was seventeen years old.
Oh, Noddy, still hard, even now. Well, by now both you and I and many others have dealt with various deaths, but still...
Nod to J. and this friend of mine.
Noddy24 wrote:That October afternoon he made a date, "To say goodbye." He drove her to a country road, shot her and then killed himself.
What is it about some men that they have to kill their family /lover, etc, and then kill themselves? I have heard this far too many times.
Sounds as though you are truly vicariously traumatized, osso - I am wondering if you are having any nightmares or intrusive images of her situation?
I think it is good for you to be writing about it here.
Did you get my PM?
If you feel comfortable to, can you tell us what is the most distressing thought/fear/image to you as you think about what happened?
In this case it is a sad story still going on. No searches, no obituaries, and so on.
I am trying to make a mark for a friend who was a loner. Clearly I am flubbing it up.
I'll post more when I know more.
for example, I think there are tributes in the works.
I'll post more official type stuff on the art forum thread.
Dlowan, I did get yours and several others, I seem to be in tharn for answering. I will answer all of them.
I admit to a kind of persiflage as I was never her close friend. But I am not not a friend. know we both thought of each other as friends and that's enough.
This evening I know more.
First, apparently her body was found intact/15 days.
She was there on a plein air painting trip.
She actually wrote a will with stuff at hand.
There is no press on this.
Not that I want to trigger it, g'forbid, that is a good part of my trying to be quiet.
There will be memorials, at some point, but family is just learning now. I don't want to call attention online to the difficult bits. I needed to talk, thus trying to keep this non-particular, re the person
First of all, a big hug, Osso.
Terrible story.
Specially the sense that when she was dead, none of you knew, or even thought about it.
The vain will to have been there to assist her.
Reminds me of a former coworker and fellow ballplayer, a loner, who died at 56 on his house, alone... the neighbours noticed when they began to feel the stench, three days after his death.
As to the most distressing image, yes, I have imagined having something start to gnaw at my foot or thigh..
well, I gather this didn't happen, thank sweetie.
She did, I gather die of dehydration in the wild. So I had my parcel of images as the ready. Maybe she landed on rocks, with broken bits.
Well, what can I say to make it better? I don't know, except that notgnawed seems relatively good. Maybe she had time and tides for peace, in the seven or eight days.
Nod to Fbaezer, you have it, the not being there and the general impossibility of being there.
Of course in her case, she was the able climber, and so on.
I could have only helped by dialing some phone. But, I think she was out of phone range.
I am quite the flagrant non athlete now myself but have various friends, like my friend here, who still hike alone, who know all the bad bits but also have decades of experience.
this not meant to blame her. I think she was in fact not all that far from where her truck was parked, for the leaving. She died, I gather, within not that many feet of it.
On your friend, fbaezer, there was probably a lot going on, or ceasing going on, in his mind and spirit. And then no one is monitoring...
for very reasonable reasons...
Have sent you a PM, Osso......rather waffly and rambling, I'm afraid, but I hope you get my gist.
Ossobucco,
you have my sincerest sympathies
i too very recently suffered a loss under horrifying circumstances
it is very difficult, to feel helpless
i hope you feel better soon
s
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