I stagger with dizzy euphoria, both from the altitude and from the astonishing beauty of the Andes. Lofty summits flaunt their crystalline splendor in all directions. My daughter, George, stands above me in the gravelly saddle of a 15,000-foot pass with majestic Nevado Cuyoc directly behind her. My fingers cramp in the thin, bitter air, yet I force them to extract my camera. I click a photo as she waves. Then, she drops out of sight, leaving me with only the view of the jagged monolith.
We’re on a ninety-mile circuit of the remote Huayhuash Range in north-central Peru with my husband Scott, George’s friend Mark, and a Peruvian guide. After six days of lugging backpacks, we’ve crossed several high-elevation passes with views of glacier-clad peaks and soaring Andean condors. That particular pass is different, though. Months later, it becomes for me a transition of sorts, between the daughter who waves from a place of strength and the one who drops into a world I can scarcely fathom.
We stop for lunch, and as we munch our typical fare of cheese, crackers, and dried fruit, George suddenly turns quiet. Tears well in her eyes. She bends forward and rests her head on her knees. I stare at the blue and white pattern of her trucker’s hat and try to deduce what’s going on underneath it.
“A touch of altitude sickness?” I ask.
“No,” she says, “It’s my stomach. Sometimes it hurts when I eat.” I look at Mark, and see a concern that has not yet become my own. A chilly wind sweeps through the valley, and out come the jackets. In a short time, we are on the trail again, but for me, a shadowed question has blown in with the gathering clouds.
I return to my office on campus where I’m no longer a mountaineer, but the assistant director of a research institute, and the snowy cliffs of the Andes have been replaced by a mountain of unfinished work. The director walks in, welcomes me back, and launches into a description of the crisis of the day. Ten minutes later, he jabs me with the real issue. He can’t operate when I’m off climbing mountains. He needs more continuity. He calls my attention to grant application deadlines, up-coming conferences, co-authored papers that need revisions. He leaves, I slump. Two years ago, I formally retired, and this new position is supposed to be an opportunity, a way to inject the wisdom of a long career into the next generation. A part-time position—or so we had agreed. Perhaps I signed up for more than I intended.
George has moved to Jackson, Wyoming for another season of snow. I hear an odd weakness in her voice when she calls in early September. Her stomach pain has worsened, and I console her as best I can from six hundred miles away. We discuss a systematic process of eliminating certain food groups: gluten, dairy. I ask her to please let me know what she learns from her experiments. I hang up and return to the grant application, the up-coming conference, the paper that needs a revision. All the papers on my desk have George’s face on them.
I remind myself that George has never been one to let anything get in her way. At the age of ten, she ditched her birth name, Laurel, and announced that from henceforth, she would be George. She apparently never liked her position as baby of the family either, because by the age of three, she had grown as tall and as smart as her older sister. She came into this world long and lanky, like her birth father, who was six foot two and slim as a straw till the day he died. As a teenager, George’s slender frame became a liability. Her friends called her a beanpole and a freak. In high school, adults assumed she was bulimic when in fact, she had a healthy appetite. The family food budget leaped to new heights as she grew an amazing six inches in her sophomore year. The growth spurt elongated her body to a supple, five-foot-ten-inch height, as though she had simply been stretched lengthwise. Her narrow face and aquiline nose gradually transformed from awkward to beautiful. Then, perfect strangers—mostly men—approached her with business cards and offered modeling careers. She chose instead the more practical field of dental hygiene.
After her college graduation, George wasn’t ready to crouch under the artificial light of a dentist’s lamp. She announced she was taking her snowboard to New Zealand for a few months of R&R. I hugged her for too long at the airport, already missing her. During those college years, she had become my rock-climbing buddy. We met weekly at a climbing gym, and once, we even ventured to Yosemite where we swung leads up technical routes with one hundred twenty feet of rope and thirty-seven years in age between us. When she got on that plane to New Zealand, I felt I had lost not only a daughter, but a companion.
Fortunately, she landed a job at a ski shop in Queenstown, found cheap housing, and lived her dream of riding her board every day. When the snow in New Zealand yielded to spring flowers, she created her own world of perpetual winter by crossing the equator four times in two years to follow the snow. Before we convened in Peru for our Andean adventure, she had worked at a ski resort in Chile. She was twenty-six then, and her outdoor pursuits had finally placed a layer of muscle on her frame. She looked invincible.
Three weeks and many phones calls later, George tells me that all of her experiments in dietary restrictions have failed. She confesses that her weight has dropped to one hundred pounds. The news hurtles me into action.
“I’ll be there Friday afternoon. Don’t worry, sweetheart—we’re going to figure this out.” I slam the receiver onto the desk phone and walk down the hall to the director’s office with a request I know will displease him—I must ask for a leave of absence.
I arrive at George’s apartment in Jackson and wish I had come sooner. Her face and arms are bone thin. Hip bones protrude through black yoga pants. I extract a loaf of homemade bread from my suitcase, and within minutes, vegetable broth simmers on the stove. I’m determined to resolve her issue with organic food and motherly love. I may be weary of my research position, but I never tire of being a mom. George swallows the broth and nibbles the bread, then groans and collapses in her chair. Her face scrunches into a knot. Half bent, she drags herself across the room and flops onto the couch. All I can do is sit next to her and stroke her hair. I convince her to fly back to Flagstaff with me.
From that moment, I enter her world of pain and confusion, of fear and despair. Together, we see several gastroenterologists who order standard tests that yield inconclusive results. Each doctor eyes her gaunt frame, asks if she is happy, and suggests counseling. Gently, they imply it’s all in her head. Not so gently, one physician detects suicidal thoughts and wants her placed in the psychiatric ward. I finally call the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale and plead for an appointment. They find a slot, a full month away. As the days creep by, her weight continues to inch downward, and I worry the appointment might come too late.
I can’t bear to watch the way she walks across the living room. Despair envelopes her like a shroud. I suggest she keep a journal to express what she is experiencing. She shares a page with me that breaks my heart. She lets me include it here.
What happened to my life? I used to climb mountains, but now the single flight of stairs in my parents’ house feels insurmountable. I used to snowboard, but now I can barely read a book. Look at me—elbows and knees are the widest parts of my long limbs. When I shower, clumps of hair come loose in my fingers. I no longer menstruate. I don’t feel like a woman anymore. I’m a frail and sickly thing, living with my parents, barely able to get through each day. I’m scared.
One morning, I find her on the couch, the color drained from her face.
“Please hold me,” she says. “I can’t live this way any longer. This is no life – this is hell. I want to die, and if this disease won’t kill me, I’ll do it myself.” Frightened, I lean over and scrunch her thin body close to keep her from slipping away from me.
Our excursions to the Mayo Clinic are the only events that mark our calendar that winter. Scottsdale is over two hours away, but it offers sunshine and warmth. We trade mountain snow for desert cacti and replace bulky sweaters with T-shirts. We turn each trip into an overnighter, and after her appointments, we often stop for ice cream. This is a strange discovery—George can eat ice cream. It’s the only food that slips right down and gives her a boost of energy, a lick of chocolate-flavored hope. I savor these brief moments of happiness with my daughter.
The appointments are a whirlwind of scans, tests, and probes as George is passed from one specialist to the next— endoscopies with multiple biopsies, a CCK-HIDA scan for her pancreas and gallbladder, an abdominal CT, a barium swallow test, an EKG, an intestinal ultrasound and more blood tests than we can count. Nothing seems to point to a meaningful diagnosis. George finally suggests a stomach-emptying test, something she read about as she scoured the web for insights into her condition. For most adults, the stomach empties in one to two hours. When George takes the test, her stomach empties in twenty-two hours.
At last, this test unlocks a diagnosis. George has a condition called gastroparesis—partial paralysis of the stomach, a condition often associated with diabetes but rarely occurring in young, healthy individuals. Her stomach has lost motility—the ability to squeeze, knead, and grind food. Every time she eats, her entire digestive process is brought to a halt, like traffic on a congested freeway. Precious nutrients sit idle, unable to move into her bloodstream. No wonder she feels hungry and full at the same time.
At last, we have a name for the beast. My body relaxes as the tension of the unknown flows out of me. I look at George, hoping to see relief in her eyes, but instead, I see disappointment. She knew from her internet research that there’s no cure for her disorder. Sadly, the gastroenterologist confirms that this is so. There’s no treatment, no surgery, no magic pill that will heal her broken stomach. He announces that George’s final appointment is with a Mayo dietician, just down the hall, who will help her live with her condition. He shakes our hands and wishes George the best in her endeavors.
The dietician exudes empathy, but she metes out a menu that sounds like a prison sentence: Eight ounces of Ensure and no more than two grams of fiber per meal. No solid foods. Fruit and vegetable juices are fine, as long as the fiber is completely extracted with a juicer. Ice cream is fine, since it passes easily through the stomach and will help her maintain her weight.
We leave the clinic and I feel buoyant—my daughter is going to live. George, on the other hand, is crushed. As we drive home, she’s quiet, and I assume she is mourning the loss of her favorite foods. Pizza with beer. Spaghetti with wine. When she shares her journal entry with me the next day, though, I see that her concerns run much deeper.
I can’t imagine how I can live on those limited calories. I won’t have the strength to work again, and without work, I can’t live an independent life. I feel like all of the pursuits that define me are out of reach, and without them, who am I?”
I return to work and ask myself the same question—who am I? I spend hours on two grant applications and neither of them are funded. I organize the conference, and it bores me. I revise the manuscript and wonder if anyone will read it. I’m putting in the hours, but receiving no nourishment.
One January night, I have a long talk with the full moon. I want to quit my job, but I need a purpose, an objective, a dream, in order to survive this strange thing called retirement. I thought the part-time position would keep me from washing out into the sea of oblivion. Instead, it has prevented me from sailing to new shores. But if I retire, what will I do? I might live for forty more years. I became a wildlife ecologist because I love wildlife, not offices. I love to write, and I want to go beyond the constraints of science publications. As moonlight fades into morning, I choose two things and make them promises. I’ll find a piece of injured land and restore it. I’ll write a novel where the animals are real but the people are all from my imagination. But first, I’ll write my letter of resignation.
George gradually gains a pound or two with her spartan diet. Moreover, a blood test reveals no nutrient deficiencies. She’s able to work part-time as a dental hygienist, and she moves into town with friends to shorten her commute. When she calls me, though, I still hear unhappiness. She spends her weekends in bed, recuperating. Bouts of depression still plague her. As her twenty-seventh birthday approaches, I want to do something special for her—something to raise her spirits.
“I want to go skydiving,” she tells me.
A red flag unfurls inside my head, and my mouth goes dry. The last thing I want is for my depressed daughter to jump out of a plane. “Sweetheart, I don’t think that’s a good idea.” My mind races for another, more reasonable birthday option. “What if we invite all your friends to Bushmaster Park? We could play frisbee, wiffleball…” The idea seems lame as soon as it springs from my mouth.
“With bottles of Ensure for everyone? Or, do I get to watch them gobble up cake after I blow out the candles?” She huffs. “No—I want to go skydiving. I won’t do anything stupid. Besides, beginners have to “tandem” jump—I’ll be strapped to the chest of some experienced guy. I’ll look like a giant baby in a front pack.”
In the end, she wins. It’s her birthday, after all. I contribute to the cost, but I can’t bring myself to witness the event. The six-hour roundtrip drive to the “dropzone” is my main excuse, but honestly, I’m not keen on what she’s doing. I have no interest in watching my clinically-depressed daughter jump out of an airplane. I fidget at home, waiting to hear how it went. Once again, she’s dropped over that mountain pass, out of sight.
“That was ama-a-a-zing!” she gushes over the phone afterwards. “The view, the wind rushing past me… I actually forgot about everything. I felt like I got out of jail for one totally mind-blowing minute.”
“Oh, sweetie, I’m so happy for you!” I’m sincere, but I’m reeling from confusion, trying to comprehend the new tone in my daughter’s voice. Then, she tells me that for only a few hundred dollars more (it actually turns out to be a few thousand dollars more), she can use her first jump as part of a ten-jump package of skydiving lessons. I listen, but no words emerge from my suddenly dry mouth.
“You don’t have to help with this, Mom, I already did it. I had a little bit of savings left, so I signed up.”
I balk at her plans. Her job is already exhausting, so how can she possibly manage the long drive down to the dropzone every weekend, let alone the concentration needed for learning a new sport? I’m also concerned about the money; I want her to build up some savings in case she has to stop working.
“But that’s just it, Mom,” she explains. “My condition could turn south without warning. I could end up on a feeding tube or even die. I want to enjoy what remaining life I have, however long that might be.”
I listen and can’t help but notice the role reversal between us—her goals are those of a person near the end of her life, while mine are those of a person who anticipates a long future.
George thrives on her skydiving lessons while I pack up the books in my office. They look out of place in my house—tomes on remote sensing and landscape habitat analysis. What will I do with these? My contributions to science have been eclipsed by advancements made by youngsters. I crave something meaningful to do with my time. I use my grant-writing skills to apply for funds to restore seventy acres of weed-infested land at a local wastewater treatment plant, Kachina Wetlands. For six weeks, I live in the Amazon rainforest as a volunteer observer of a harpy eagle nest. I return from the jungle with an idea for a novel, about the turning point in a woman’s life.
George calls, excited to tell me about the physics of falling. How the slightest movement of an arm can thrust her in a certain direction for a hundred feet. She speaks. I listen. We inhabit different worlds, but I’m still her mother. I want to understand what she’s doing. When the lessons are over, she signs up for more. In less than a year, she has jumped two hundred times. Gradually, I begin to accept her crazy pastime. At least she’s happy.
I’m happy, too. I found a novel hiding in my fingertips, and now it’s leaping from keyboard to laptop screen. Moreover, I’m finally awarded a grant—not for a research study, but to restore Kachina Wetlands. The funds go to a local business with restoration experience, and they use it to spray weeds and reseed with native plants. I rally scores of citizens who are willing to follow up with hand weeding. Together, we watch the land transform.
Shortly before her twenty-eight birthday, George calls with unexpected news. She has passed the final test with the United States Parachute Association and is now a USPA-rated skydiving coach. My jaw drops. I’ve been weeding land and writing a novel and haven’t noticed that a year has passed.
That’s retirement, I tell myself. I must have arrived.
George says she’s aiming to become a skydiving videographer, and her voice is laced with hope—something I haven’t heard in a long time. She explains how most clients want a video of their first jump to show their friends, and the film must be shot by someone other than the coach. She has access to a GoPro, but she needs a high-quality camera for still photos. Suddenly, I see where this is going. I know how much she dislikes her work as a dental hygienist, and now, with some help from me, she can actually earn a living doing what she loves.
I order the camera as soon as we get off the phone.
George reciprocates in a way that brings us close again, at least in spirit. She’s the first reader of my novel, and she’s a helpful critic. She finds discrepancies in the plot and points out places where my youthful characters sound like sixty-year-olds.
The novel progresses. Kachina Wetlands heals. I find joy in a flock of teals winging across the ponds. George gets her first videography job at a dropzone in Wisconsin. Her stomach is as paralyzed as ever, but not her life. Several months later, she returns to Arizona, with over eight hundred jumps to her credit. I finally get to see her in action.
I watch her film her first client for the day, a rosy-cheeked woman from Phoenix. Together, they hop onto a cart that takes them out to the airstrip, leaving me behind. Soon, I see their small plane above me, circling in the cloudless sky. I focus my binoculars as a small dot bursts from the plane, followed by another. The second dot, like a tiny bee, spins in a circle around the first one. That’s George, making perfect pirouettes as she films her client in action. With her birthday camera strapped to her helmet, I know she’s clicking photos by biting down on a remote control in her mouth. I marvel at how she can do that while also keeping track of her altitude.
Suddenly, she plunges straight down, heading for ground at a frightening speed. I see arms and legs now, and I gasp, not knowing whether her fall is planned or not. I want to look away, while at the same time, my eyes are glued to my plummeting daughter. Then, a nylon canopy unfurls above her, framing her body in bright pink and yellow. I exhale and slap my chest in relief. George lands, slips free of her canopy, and rushes across the grassy field toward her descending client, just in time to snap the perfect landing shot.
Afterwards, we sit in the shade and talk. I ask her how she is doing, really. “I still feel hunger and pain, Mom, but my stomach no longer defines me. I’m George 2.0, a new version of myself.”
As we chat, two skydiving coaches walk by, and they greet George with high-fives. George grins. “The best part is that hardly anyone knows about my illness. They just think I’m a really skinny chick who doesn’t take lunch breaks.”
Two years have passed, and George is still thriving on Ensure and ice cream. She has jumped over two thousand times and has coached hundreds of beginners. She’s taken her own skills to new limits in a specialized “wingsuit” with flared material on arms and legs that makes her look like a flying squirrel. In competitions, her feather weight and long limbs give her a decided advantage in staying aloft. Her wingsuit team wins the silver in the USPA National Championships.
And me? Sometimes I feel like I’m still on the other side of that mountain pass in the Andes, watching George as she disappears out of sight. I’m proud of her for finding a way to live a purposeful life in spite of her condition, but I feel left behind. The world of skydiving is beyond me. At times, though, I feel we have grown closer through our separate leaps. At first, both of us were scared. Now, we see where those jumps have taken us.
Sometimes, when my fingertips hang empty over the keyboard, I take my binoculars out to Kachina Wetlands and find joy in the flight of birds. An osprey hovers overhead with long, angular wings, then dives headfirst into the pond. She, too, must plunge for her prize—a fish to nourish her. Later, as she soars in tight circles, I see George up there. She knows how to fly. She knows how the slightest tilt of a wing can thrust her in a certain direction for over a hundred feet.