Date: 2015-03-08
To: Reflections
Miles today: 0.0

When tragedy strikes, it is often completely unexpected. Perhaps that quality is what makes coping with such an event so tremendously difficult. When I left the summit of Springer Mountain, in Georgia, with the goal of hiking the entire 2,184 mile Appalachian Trail during the next four months, I knew I would return with some new perspectives. But I could never have anticipated the tragedy that would occur about two thousand miles away, and how it would completely alter my perception of life. After graduating from North Andover High School, I had the opportunity to take a gap year and hike the Appalachian Trail, a goal I have had since childhood. On February 27, 2012, this dream became my reality and I left Springer Mountain, heading north with the goal of reaching Mount Katahdin in Maine. This journey lasted about four months and gave me some of the best memories of my life. I would strongly recommend this trek to anyone, as few other experiences provide an opportunity to achieve such personal growth in so short a span of time. The journey required more perseverance and mental toughness than anything I had ever gone through before, including the challenges I faced in leading my team to back to back state championships as a high school wrestler. Additionally, it required a positive attitude to overcome the adversity caused by challenges such as weeks of rain getting all my gear wet, or a giant blister that made every step painful. After finishing my thru hike, I was far more independent and self-reliant. I gained an appreciation for complete solitude, something that had initially frightened me and made me feel as though I were going mad. And I learned that life can be simple, as I survived in the wilderness for months with just a twenty five pound backpack.         Although the vast majority of my experiences on the Appalachian Trail were overwhelmingly positive, there was one profoundly negative and life changing experience. It occurred at Pierce Pond, in Maine, about two hundred miles, or just under two weeks, from the end of the journey. During my hike I made many friends, but no friendship was as valuable as my relationship with Parkside. He had an unbelievable energy about him. I could describe it as a youthful enthusiasm for life, but it was much more than that. To this day, I have never met anyone as positive, or who loved life as much, as Parkside. He inspired everyone he met to take a moment to slow down and observe the beauty in our world. It was Parkside¢s youthful fervor that drove him to take a risk that many, including myself, have taken before. He decided to swim across Pierce Pond, alone, without telling any of the hikers staying at the nearby campsite. I had proposed the idea to make the trip across the pond after dinner, but Parkside left on his own before I had finished eating. None of the hikers staying at the campsite realized he had entered the water until we heard panicked calls for help coming from across the pond. I dropped my dinner and sprinted to the shore, with the other hikers, and we saw Parkside showing the terrifying, classic signs of a distressed swimmer, about two hundred yards away.         Moments like this one do not allow time for careful thought. Before I knew it, I was in the water, swimming towards Parkside as fast as I possibly could. As a certified lifeguard and a very confident swimmer, I felt no risk in attempting to help him. With an intense adrenaline rush, I thought I could be there in seconds. However, I had lost over 40 pounds during the past few months of hiking. My body had adapted to walking twenty five miles or more each day and, without my normal strength and buoyancy, this two hundred yard swim quickly became exhausting. By the time I got within a stone¢s throw of Parkside, his head bobbed out of the water and quickly went back under, for the final time. I kept swimming to where I last saw his body, and dove under the surface to bring him up. Yet, with the black floor of the pond barely illuminated by the dim light of the sunset, I failed to find him. I repeated the surface dive technique I had learned during my lifeguard training over and over until I could hardly keep myself afloat. Parkside¢s body had been under for about fifteen minutes when a few of the hikers yelled for me to stop. Exhausted, I swam to the nearest shore and rolled out of the water, still in shock. It felt like an eternity lying there on the shore, numb from disbelief and astonishment. Dropout, one of the other hikers, paddled over to me in a canoe he had found on the other side of the pond. He informed me that a couple of people had gone looking for help while I was in the water, and asked me to get into the canoe. We continued searching for a while, and finally we saw Parkside¢s pale body face down, contrasting against the dark, murky bottom. I will never forget that image of him, lying face down in the mud. It has been seared into my brain and still haunts me whenever I think about Parkside or his death.         By the time we located his body, at least thirty minutes had gone by. I urged Dropout to let me dive down and bring Parkside back up, but he could see my distress. He knew it was too late, and told me that I was not in good enough shape to go back in the water. He brought me back to the campsite and told me to catch my breath, and then he went back out to that spot in the pond, to mark it for the rescue team. The hikers who had gone for helped had returned by then. Fortunately, there was a backcountry lodge nearby, equipped with a satellite phone, which the caretaker used to call 911. About an hour later, a boat was in the water with a spotlight shining down into the pond. My memory of the remainder of that night seems surreal. It is so blurry and clouded that it feels like it belongs to someone else. I do remember the boat, using a winch on the bow, pulling Parkside¢s body out of the water. After witnessing the retrieval of his body, I went into my tent for the night.        Intense emotional pain filled my next few days. I stayed with the group of hikers who had been at Pierce Pond that night, and we decided we would all hike the last two hundred miles of the AT together. I quickly realized that I needed the support of the group, because without their distractions I would just dwell on thoughts of my failed rescue attempts. The image of Parkside¢s body haunted me, and most of my time alone was spent crying. The few days after his death were also a blur, unlike the rest of my journey, which I remember vividly. After hiking for another couple of days, we reached the town of Monson, Maine. We stayed at a hostel in town, while trying to figure out what to do. We contacted Parkside¢s parents, whom I had met when they came to visit us while we were hiking through Virginia. They told us that the wake and funeral would be in a few days, so we all decided to make our way down to Queens, New York for the service. When we arrived, Parkside¢s family greeted us with open arms. I had the opportunity to meet many of his childhood friends, as well as his extended family. We all found comfort in each other¢s support. We swapped stories about Parkside to help celebrate an amazing young man¢s brief, but memorable life. The opportunity to help console his parents and younger sister brought me closure I never would have found otherwise. The support of Parkside¢s hiker family also brought his parents and sister an immense amount of comfort, as they discovered how he positively influenced so many hikers along his journey. At the end of our time in Queens, his parents informed us that they would like his ashes scattered on Katahdin, and we readily agreed to carry him to the end of his journey.At nineteen years old, I really did not know how to deal with the emotions I felt during this time. I spent the remainder of the summer, after my thru hike, working at a summer camp in New Hampshire, as I had for the past several years. After camp ended, I moved to Colorado and began my studies at the University of Denver. During the winter of my freshman year, I realized I was depressed. I did not understand why, as I thought I had spent a normal amount of time grieving and gaining closure. But over time, my depression worsened, drawing me deeper and deeper into it. I spent the next several months feeling as though I had no control over my emotions. Finally, I realized that I needed to seek professional help. I began meeting with a therapist, and learned that this traumatic event had triggered post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as the accompanying depression and anxiety that plagued me for over a year. I kept working on healing and bettering my mental health, and by the summer after my sophomore year in college I felt much better. Now, I can function very well, without feeling overwhelmed by my emotions. I learned that I need to take responsibility for my mental health in the same way that I do for my physical health. Today, I am still meeting with the therapist who helped me move on and process this experience. I am a stronger person after dealing with such trauma and tragedy. Now, I know that when adversity comes my way, I can get through it and become stronger in the process. The strength and insight that I have gained from this experience has also enabled me to write, in detail, about this tragedy for the first time here. A week after we had left for Queens, we returned to Monson and finished the hike together, each of us carrying Parkside¢s ashes for a day. We made it to the summit of Katahdin on June 29, 2012, with Parkside¢s remains. Upon reaching the plateau before the summit, I felt a rush of strong emotions flood over me. I remember crying as I ran towards the colossal goal I had focused on for the past four months. Helping Parkside complete his journey was extraordinarily spiritual for me, and it drastically changed my perspective on life. After a brief ceremony, and a somber celebration of our journeys and of Parkside¢s life, we scattered his ashes on the summit. Our group met at the bottom one last time to say our goodbyes. Then, we went our separate ways, back into civilization and our lives off the trail. But I did not return to my life as the same person who left it. I view both life and death differently than I did before. I now recognize that I cannot place too much focus on the future, as no future is ever guaranteed. Life is a delicate thing, far too precious to waste. After this experience I try to live more like Parkside, making the most of each day and enjoying every moment. I believe he lived more in his twenty years than most do in a much longer span of time. He inspired many with his unbelievably positive attitude, reminding me to greet the world with a smile, and to be ready for anything. We cannot take our time here for granted, so we must enjoy it with a positive attitude, as Parkside did.