Sacred Space

Six days after Grant died - family, a couple friends and I hiked to the crash site.  The place of his final moments on earth.  The last place he touched as a living person before the impact of that touch changed him from a physically alive living person to a physically dead living person.  The site is in the middle of nowhere. 

Had I not been inspired the day he died to ask him how to locate him on his GPS tracker, just 6 hours before I’d need this information to locate him; I don’t know how we would have found him, if ever. It means, I might have never known what happened, where he was, if he was truly gone or just left us or been taken. I would have known nothing, and not had at least the peace of knowledge.

“If anything were ever to happen to you, I need to know how to find you,” was what I said. He showed me.  Now I was in the situation where I had to use that knowledge. I had just barely relearned how to locate his location and it turned out to be his last location I would need to find.  I had been able to find it.  I had asked just in time.

Where he was, was a place no one goes. There are not trails nor paved roads nearby. There are no sites nor unique beauties to behold. It was truly deep in the wilds of the area where land and sky are plentiful and civilization is nowhere to be found. He was hidden on a hillside that can’t even be seen from the remote dirt road that is only occasionally traveled by a lone BLM ranger, a dirt road that goes nowhere, to nothing relevant, nor to the next town.

Perhaps one day he’d have been found, maybe his paraglider would have been spotted by air. It wouldn’t have been pretty either way to find, but after time it would obviously be much worse. The BLM ranger who found him based on the GPS coordinates I gave him was kind enough to take us there to see his place of death. 

Of course all apparatus and Grant’s body were already collected. It was just a GPS coordinate on a small barren hillside surrounded by desert wilderness, weeds and rocks.  The Ranger had lost his wife the year before and currently knew the pain of losing a spouse.  He understood why I wanted to go there. 

We drove up the dirt road for miles, stopped at what looked like a random hill not remarkable in any way I could perceive. I subconsciously wanted this place to to be worthy of Grant, special in some way, unique or something.  It wasn’t.  It was covered in weeds and desert brush. We began to hike, making our own trail to the site.  I was with his parents, his brothers and a few close friends. It was small. It was intimate. 

We arrived at the spot. It was possible to tell it was the right spot, but if someone perchance, were to pass by this spot, they could not, would not be able to tell it was a special, sacred place at least to me and my world. I was shocked for a moment. I could see the dried left overs of vomit and blood where his face had landed.  It explained the sound I had heard on the body cam he had been wearing. He recorded his trip and this fateful moment.   The helmet attached cam recorded the movement and sounds, but not him as it faced out at the view he was seeing.

 My mind was currently frantically searching for the input that would bring calm back to my soul. Each element of knowledge helped, but I was far from finding the calm I suddenly so dearly craved. I put all these thoughts together immediately. I needed to make sense of my situation somehow and in some way.  I looked at that spot.  I wanted to touch it.  I didn’t.  It looked so real, so human, so raw. 

The things that are usually hidden in tragedy were plain before me.  It was right there in front of me.  The amount of blood that was spilt, now dry and dark in color. The texture of what else was with it.  These are the things the authorities try to hide from us who are left behind.  I can see why.  It’s not beautiful to look at.  It’s sad, extremely impactful.  The evidence of the limits of what a human body is capable of taking and when it can’t take anymore. 

 I stood looking at the spot for a long time, surrounded but alone.  The weeds were matted down in the shape of a curled up body, the size of a man.  I could see the rock his head hit.  The dent in his helmet matched the angle of the rock.  It was a sobering site. 

It also felt sacred here somehow, a special that is beyond description of words.  A reverence existed here.  The kind of reverence that signifies a great change, a rite of passage, a transition.  Death. You don’t do it alone.  I felt that.  I felt that from the significant presence of quiet life, life that can’t be seen only felt.  They were here, whomever they are.  Whomever, whatever was here when he went here, I could feel it.  Their presence could still be felt.  They were here for me this time, but for me their presence was to support me in staying alive.

I could feel them.  I could feel him.  His energy was here too.  It felt as if he were about to tell the story of what happened here. As if, how he’d escaped again, a “narrow miss,” he would say.  He loved to tell those stories.  These stories showcased his skill in getting out of a sketchy situation, he thrived on the adrenaline.  Then to my mind came… Oh, but this time you didn’t, you didn’t get out, you didn’t miss this, now we just miss you.  He felt the heaviness of that.  We both did.  It was our transition point. 

We were different now.  We both felt that.  This is when I had to walk away.  I walked up the dusty brush filled hill, my mind thinking of his complete miss this time, the one he didn’t escape. He then spoke to me, “I’ll send you hearts.”   Ok, was my simple and somber response.  I didn’t really perceive its meaning yet. I was lost in my experience, trying to piece together some sense of life, of me, of him, of meaning.

I needed this place for me to feel him.  I had to go.  I had to see it, feel it, know it.  It was a piece of closure that helped me know.  My step into this new reality now started as I stepped away from the place he was carried from.  The last connection in the place that created our separation.