Episode 22: The ‘59 Sound

Moonlight Buttress is one of the most classic test pieces for hard climbing in North America, and on March 9th, 2016, Eric was working on linking the crux moves with the hope of free climbing it later that year when he fell from the upper pitches to his death. Eric Klimt was an accomplished climber and a teacher. He was a lover of mathematics, a pilot, and deeply passionate about adventure—and he loved climbing because he loved the freedom of it. This is just one part of Eric’s story, and we tell it through the lens of our friend, Hayley. This is also a story about the stereotypes of gender and emotional expression, the importance of self-love, and the trajectory of grief. 

Hayley believes that everything happens for a reason, and even though it can be hard to see that when you’re in the middle of grief, the good stuff is there. Silver linings don’t always look so shiny when you’re stuck inside of a raincloud, but it never rains forever, the sun eventually comes back out, and we aren’t as alone as we think. This is just one part of Eric’s story, who played a huge part in Hayley’s life.

This episode is in dedication to the Klimt family and to Eric. Thank you for the larger-than-life adventures and for filling the world with and light in the short time that you were with us. “May your soul be free, and the view be breathtaking.”

This episode is brought to you by deuter, Gnarly Nutrition, Allez Outdoor, and Appalachian Gear Company, and Patagonia. Music by: “Southside” by Lee Rosevere, “Ichill” by Kakurenbo, “Slotcar”, Blue Highway”, “60’s Quiz Show”, “Well and Good”, “Knock Knock”, “Pives and Flarinet”, “Good Times”, “Gentle Heart”, “Glass Piano“, “Twilight Grand” by Podington Bear, “Flawless” by Ryan Anderson, and “Gentle Sea Swell” by Daniel Birch.

A HUGE thank you to Chad Crouch (aka Podington Bear) for the support, and to Peter Darmi for all of his help. Cover photo courtesy of Christian Rathkopf.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

(KATHY KARLO): Hey. This is a special announcement about a film called “Stone Locals”. It just premiered on August 27th, and if you’re thinking to yourself, “Hey! That sounds like a climbing film.”—you wouldn’t be wrong, but—ok, you know how this podcast is kind of not really a climbing podcast? This film is sort of like that! It’s a film about the soul of rock climbing, and it’s told through the lens of five interwoven stories.⁠ And I bet you’re asking yourself, “What does the soul of rock climbing even look like?”

As climbing continues to grow, the people who anchor its core and community have more responsibility than ever before. In this new film, Patagonia gracefully tells the story of five of these anchors. I don’t want to tell you too much, but I—your podcast host—am one of these five stories told. You know how we’re always talking about vulnerability? Well, you can’t preach what you don’t practice. After you listen to this episode, go to the Patagonia YouTube channel and check out the full-length film “Stone Locals”. This film is brought to you by Patagonia. Not bound by convention, Patagonia’s in business to save our home planet.

- This podcast is sponsored by deuter, one of the leading backpack brands that will help you hit the trails with confidence and comfort, but most importantly–your snacks.

deuter has a history of first ascents and alpine roots. Their head of product development even climbed Everest once, in jeans (hashtag not fake news.) deuter is known for fit, comfort, and ventilation. Founded in 1898, deuter believes in good fitting backpacks, so you can focus on way cooler things like puppies, pocket bacon, and gettin’ sendy, whether at the crag or in the alpine.

– We’re working with Better Help to connect you to licensed therapists because even though my advice and opinions are free, I am improvising the whole thing. Better Help lets you message a licensed therapist, day or night. They’ll match you with the perfect therapist for a fraction of the cost of traditional therapy. You know who goes to therapy? Prince Harry. Emma Stone. Jenny Slate. Kesha.

Therapy is beautiful—everyone should go to therapy. Go to betterhelp.com/climbing to sign up and receive one free week. It helps support this show, and it helps support you.

– This podcast gets support from Gnarly Nutrition, one of the leading protein supplements that tastes “whey” better than they need to, because they use quality natural ingredients. So, whether you’re a working mom who runs circles around your kids on weekends or an unprofessional climber trying to send that 5.13 in the gym, Gnarly Nutrition has all of your recovery needs.

The only question you need to ask yourself is: Are you a sucker for anything that tastes like chocolate ice cream? (Yeah, me neither.) Gnarly Nutrition is designed to enhance your progress—and taste like a milkshake, without all the crap.

(FEMALE VOICE): Today we’re going to talk about “allez”. “Allez” means “come on!” in a way, or to encourage. Ok! We are done with the simple and normal uses of “allez”, now let’s cut to the chase:

(KATHY KARLO): Allez Outdoor Personal Care products are made by climbers for those who love the outdoors. Their rich and repairing ingredients for their skincare collection are inspired by desert landscapes, and their simple and recyclable packaging makes them eco-sustainable. Allez commits to protecting the open spaces that we love by partnering with the Access Fund and 1% for the Planet. That’s Allez Outdoor: “A-L-L-E-Z”). Allez Outdoor—made by climbers, for those who love the outdoors.

– This podcast gets support from Appalachian Mountain Gear, whose All-Paca Fleece Hoodie won the 2019 Backpacker’s Editors’ Choice Award. We’ve never actually won an award, but this one seems legit. The All-Paca Hoodie offers unmatched breathability and you can wear it for days in comfort under a pack or harness thanks to its durability and design.

This lightweight, eco-friendly fabric is the sustainable performance piece that you didn’t even know you were missing. You can take 10% off your order by using discount code “FORTHELOVEOFCLIMBING”, all capital letters (because we’re shouting…for emphasis.) Appalachian Mountain Gear stands by responsibly sourced alpaca fiber and this podcast.

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(HAYLEY ROSEN): (deep breath)

It was interesting ‘cause when I got the call from his sister that he had died, I had done so much letting go of him. As someone who had been in a relationship with him, it was really different I think, of course, then someone in his family maybe or best friend.

And, I mean, of course, it was a huge loss for me and it was really, really challenging and probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever dealt with, but in certain ways—I don’t know. I guess you can’t categorize grief, but it definitely would have been different if we were still together.

(KK): Moonlight Buttress is one of the most famed climbs in North America, rising above Zion Canyon in southwestern Utah. First established on aid gear in 1971, this route became a classic test piece for hard climbing after being freed in 1992. And it was for this very reason that Eric was captivated by the challenge, like so many climbers before him.

On March 9th, 2016, Eric was working on linking the crux moves with the hope of free climbing it later that year when he fell from the upper pitches to his death. Zion National Park rangers suspected that he somehow detached from his self-belay system, but with no witnesses—it would be impossible to know exactly what happened that morning.

Eric Klimt was an accomplished climber and a teacher. He was a lover of mathematics, a pilot, and deeply passionate about adventure—and it would be an understatement to say that Eric was loved by everyone he met. Eric loved climbing because he loved the freedom of it. 

This is just one part of Eric’s story, and we tell it through the lens of our friend, Hayley. This is also a story about the stereotypes of gender and emotional expression, the importance of self-love and acceptance, and the trajectory of grief. There are a lot of layers to this episode, and we touch on a lot of heavy but important things. And tragically, it might be easy to relate to if you have or know someone who has depression.

We want to mention that despite the huge social stigma surrounding depression, having similar thoughts or feelings is not a shameful thing. We all go through it, some more than others and, of course, some less. The experience of depression can be difficult to quantify and not everyone is comfortable opening up about their mental health, but when more than fifteen million adults experience depression, why aren’t we talking about it more?

Depression can differ between men and women when it comes to how we all express and cope with emotions, which can largely be due to societal ideals of masculinity. Gender-defined thinking, such as: “Man up” and “Don’t be such a girl” shame and discourage emotional expression and contributes heavily to toxic masculinity. And as much as we talk about toxic masculinity, joke and laugh at the memes, or even, for some of us, feel maybe tired of hearing about it—it’s actually a deeply painful thing for a lot of people.

And I don’t think that there’s one true formula to remove the association of shame, but I know that there’s a starting point. It begins with more conversations surrounding mental wellness. It begins with creating more safe spaces that allow us to feel exactly how we feel—which I know can be really hard, as it’s something that I’m learning, too. Every day.

Understanding that the hard stuff is only a part of the story as opposed to the big picture, the sum of someone’s life, the whole enchilada—it comes with time and experience. It is but one fraction of a yard of the entire nine.

Hayley believes that everything happens for a reason, and even though it can be hard to see that when you’re in the middle of grief, the good stuff is there. It’s still coming. Silver linings don’t always look so shiny when you’re stuck inside of a raincloud, but it never rains forever, the sun eventually comes back out, and we aren’t as alone as we think. There are a lot of layers to this episode, for sure, and this is just one part of Eric’s story, who played a huge part in Hayley’s life.

(HR): I know Eric told me multiple times that he felt like he could be comfortable with me because he didn’t feel judged by me, and he really struggled a lot in his life with feeling a lot of shame. And I’m not sure all of the trauma or reasons where that comes from and I don’t know that it’s my place to guess or to try and figure it out. I don’t know know if he just didn’t share with me everything or if he didn’t remember or if it’s from past lives or what.

But he really had a lot of suffering and a simple way to say it is that he struggled with depression and I think that it’s ok to talk about. He just felt really comfortable with me ‘cause he didn’t feel judged by me—I think is kinda where a big part of our connection came from. And from my end, he just had a really big heart. He was a very—oh gosh. I mean, there’s so many things I could say about Eric I gotta focus in on.

(laughs)

And I think part of the reason that he struggled so much emotionally was because of how sensitive he was and emotional he was as a person. And he didn’t ever talk about it with anyone and didn’t ever wanna put it on anyone. He would just go into his room and get in his bed and hide, for days at a time, when he was feeling that way. And the reason that he did that is because he didn’t want to put it on anyone else—he didn’t want other people to be exposed to it.

And, I mean, that’s kind of like more of a negative way of looking at how big his heart was, but he just walked around with the biggest, most genuine smile all the time and he struck me as someone who was really happy, and so, a lot of people, I think, are shocked and have been shocked to hear that he struggled with happiness and feeling good about himself all the time.

And I’ll say that he was his best self and he knew he was his best self when he was climbing all the time, and that’s ultimately a huge part of why we broke up. He felt like he was a failure in our relationship and he felt like was a failure in relationships in general.

I remember, I think it was my twenty-eighth birthday or twenty-ninth birthday maybe, and he asked me what I wanted for my birthday, and I jokingly said I wanted to get married and have kids. And he didn’t laugh or smile. Not that it was funny, but I mean, I wasn’t necessarily being totally serious. But he just kind of looked really serious and he gave it some thought and was quiet for a moment and then he said, “Well, I think I’m gonna need about seven years—maybe five to seven years, and then—and then we can do that.” 

And that’s just kinda how his brain worked. He was really mathematical; obviously—he double majored in math and physics. At one point, he said, he wanted to move to—with me!—move to Mars.

(laughs)

And I was like, “I mean, I don’t want to do that at all, but ok!” Ah, that was his ideal situation, other than just climbing all the time. And so, I think our relationship kind of was held together by just love, and it also was really rocky because of love. Because I think while he loved me very much, he really needed to have climbing in his life to remain grounded.

And when you’re in a relationship, it’s really hard to climb all the time to be what I consider or what he considered a climber. You know, to fully dedicate himself and to keep himself, I think, emotionally stable and emotionally secure in himself and out of his head and more in his heart. I think he really needed to be climbing all the time.

And so, when we broke up, he left to go climbing. Basically, he went on an extended climbing trip and we stayed in touched and we talked frequently. You know, for a couple that broke up, it probably wasn’t the healthiest thing.

I think in a lot of ways, we remained in love and it was really, really hard and also, it was the right thing for us not to be together because he just wasn’t able to—and this is what he said. It wasn’t just my perception. But from my perception and what he told me, he just was not able to give me what I wanted in relationship and he needed to be climbing. And so, I had to support that and let go of him.

(KK): You’re listening to For the Love of Climbing Podcast. This is not a climbing podcast. Well, sorta. This is a funny, sad, and somewhat uncomfortable podcast about choosing vulnerability and talking openly about our pain. This podcast is sponsored by Dirtbag Climbers. Here’s the show.

(HR): So, my name’s Hayley and how do I fit into this “Eric picture”? Eric and I knew each other through mutual friends for many years and I don’t identify as a climber, but I have climbed since I was twelve years old and have always been surrounded by climbers and definitely have intertwined myself into the community of climbing. And yeah, Eric and I were together on and off for two to three years, in multiple places in this country, and he was a dear friend to me and—yeah.

(KK): It feels important to mention the same thing that I told Hayley when we sat down to record last summer: that this is just as much her story as it is Eric’s. So, it was kinda funny to hear Hayley ask how she fits into the “Eric picture” when I’ve actually been asking myself, “How does Eric fit into the Hayley picture’? Love is complicated, climber or not. True love never really ends, so says about ten thousand Pinterest quotes, and likewise—every story has a beginning.

(HR): I grew up in rural Western Massachusetts. I mean, it’s rural in some sense—it felt rural to me ‘cause it was on a lake and we lived on a long dirt road and I had to walk from the bus stop for about a mile home. Maybe it wasn’t a mile—but it felt like a mile as a little kid!

And I went to this amazing international artsy, hippie summer camp for a month at a time every summer when I was a kid, starting from age ten until I was a counselor when I was eighteen. And I learned to climb on their climbing wall at camp and then, the first place I ever went outdoor climbing was Cathedral Ledge of all places, super exposed, with one of my favorite counselors, Jack. Jack, if you’re listening—

(laughs)

—I love you! And yeah. I mean, I climbed a little bit with a couple friends in high school, just at this local crag in Western Mass—not Farley, but a tiny one called Rose Ledge. And we just toproped and there was a little climbing gym in North Hampton which is about forty-five minutes away from where I grew up and I climbed a little bit in college.

And then, really the one year of my life that I could say I was a climber was when I lived in North Conway for a year. The relationship that I was in before Eric was with someone who was a climber and then Eric was a climber and then, now I’m with a climber. So, I’ve always kind of—

(laughs)

—been with people who are climbers and I have a lot of friends who are climbers, but it’s hard for me to identify as a climber because it’s never been my number one priority and I feel like most of the people that I do consider climbers or that consider themselves climbers are people that just completely dedicate their lives to climbing.

And, of course, that’s changing now, but I feel like the way climbing used to be was all or nothing. I think you can certainly call yourself a climber now and it’s a different culture, but I feel like ten, fifteen years ago it was like, you weren’t a climber unless you were doing it, you know, as your “soul” activity.

I mean, for me, I do yoga all the time and if I don’t do Chaturanga, three times a week, then it’s a really painful pose. You know what I mean? And so, climbing is the same way—it’s like, if you’re not doing it all the time, then it just doesn’t feel the same. You don’t go into the flow state as easily. And so, it doesn’t feel like the same relationship.

(KK): You know, I can’t personally speak to ten or fifteen years ago since I haven’t been climbing that long yet, but I just wanted to say that in defense of things like the weekend warrior or gym climbers or toprope-only people—you can do any or all of these things and still be a climber. Like, there’s no one, definitive way to be a rock climber. You don’t have to be dumpster diving or climbing 5.13 and sleeping in your car three hundred and sixty five days a year to feel like the real thing.

I think that whatever your preference, whatever your lifestyle and work schedule allow—as long as you have a deep love and connection to climbing, you can consider yourself a climber. And I’m sure that a few old-fashioned trad dads might not agree with this perspective—and that’s fine.

I guess that I’m just basically trying to say that you don’t have to go the hardest to be the best, and you don’t automatically lose your “outdoors” card because you skipped a weekend session and went to the gym instead.

(HR): There’s a lot that happened in between North Conway and Baltimore, but I ended up in Baltimore because I wanted to go back to school and become a nurse, and the one that I ended up going to was Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. So, I was very afraid of going to Baltimore in a lot of ways. Mostly just ‘cause it’s an urban environment but also, it has a reputation for being a dangerous city and kind of like a grimy city and actually, I fell in love with it.

But I was only there for—well, in my head, I was only going to be there for thirteen months during the program and I ended up staying for, gosh, three years. So, I was there for three years and Eric is from Baltimore—he grew up in Baltimore County. So, he came back to Baltimore right after I’d graduated from nursing school and we reconnected. We had met through our exes—

(laughs)

—and started spending a lot of time together and ended up dating. And it was funny; he actually—I really didn’t want to date him at first. And then, we actually ended up breaking up like six months after we started dating and he was just kind of in a place—in a hard place in his life and he was struggling and didn’t have a job and kinda felt like I needed to be with someone who had a little bit more direction even though I really cared about him.

And so, we broke up for about six months and then he ended up getting a really amazing teaching job in Northern Arizona in Prescott. And I fell back in love with him—fell more in love with him than I had been previously, and I think it was just ‘cause he had more purpose in his life. And so, it was like everything I loved about him was still there, but he was in a better place. 

At that point, I had finished my residency program at University of Maryland Medical Center in the neruo-ICU. And at the time that he moved out to Arizona, I was actually working in the NICU but had worked in the ER as a tech for a year before I became a nurse.

So, when I decided to move to be with Eric, I ended up getting a job in the ER and it was—it was good. I kind of had chosen to work in the ICU to work on honing my assessment skills, just ‘cause the patients are so sick and you’re with them for so long and you really have to be detail-oriented.

And in the ER, you just kind of lose your assessment skills. So, I knew that I wanted to eventually work in the ER and I actually ended up doing my final—you have to kinda choose a focus in nursing school and my focus was ER, so I did a hundred and fifty-six hours in the ER before I graduated. So, it was not too much of a transition for me.

But yeah, so I moved out to Arizona just after Eric did, but I purposely moved about an hour and fifty minutes away from him because I had, in the past, moved across the country for love and it fell apart. So, I learned that I needed to be careful about doing that again and to make sure that if I ever did it again, to make sure that I was moving for myself and not just for the other person.

So, when I moved to Northern Arizona instead of moving to Prescott, I moved over the mountain range—to the kind of Sedona Cottonwood area. And that was a good decision in a lot of ways, for me.

(KK): Just under a year after Hayley had move to Arizona, Hayley and Eric had broken up no longer together, both physically and as a couple. But a breakup doesn’t necessarily mean that you lose that connection, and it was still there for both of them. Which makes breaking up and being in two different places kinda complicated, even though Hayley and Eric both knew that it was the right decision. And then Eric took off—except it wasn’t just to go climbing. Hayley described this trip as sort of a soul journey. 

(HR): Maybe at the time because we were still in love, he wanted to do that for me and I think he also probably wanted to do it for himself. But I think he was, whether he knew it or not, he was definitely on a soul journey when he left for that climbing trip and…

(trails off)

I mean, of course he had been on long, extended climbing trips before that—he had gone on a trip around the world with his brother for a year at one point. And I can’t speak to what his intentions were during that time, but it just seemed like when he left on this particular trip, he was really doing some deep soul searching. And he was telling me, you know, in the beginning of his trip how much he was struggling—it was almost like he was going through a detox.

And I think, on an emotional level, he was going through some sort of a cleanse, trying to purify his soul on some level. And I don’t, you know, I can’t speak to where his shame came from, but he told me multiple times that he felt that way—that he felt shame and that he carried with him, he harbored a lot on his shoulders.

And it just seemed like he had this intention of clearing out all the cobwebs and finding his heart. And whether that meant climbing or whether that meant eventually finding love again, whether it was with me or someone else or love for himself—I think maybe he didn’t know that it was love for himself, but I think he probably innately or intuitively knew that he needed to learn how to love himself.

And if climbing was his tool that he needed to use, his best tool that he had to get to that place—that was what he was gonna use to get there. And he also—I know he was vegan for a while.

(laughs)

Just the last time I saw him, he was the healthiest that I had ever seen him and it was what he was putting in his body. It was whole foods—whole plant foods, tons of fruits and vegetables and not a lot of toxins and everything was organic and it was just not the way he had been in the past.

And I just think that was coming from a deeper intuitive place. And he was also the happiest that I ever saw him—the last time I saw him. The last time I saw him was in November of 2016, but the last time we connected—talked on the phone was in February and then, I think I sent him a message three days before the accident. And he responded and the message was literally, “I miss you. I love you.” and he responded the same.

And this is a tough subject for me just ‘cause I certainly don’t have a solid perspective on the whole thing. Like, I have different ideas of what happened and why it happened and none of us are ever gonna know why it happened and yes—I do think he died doing what he loved.

And certainly, in some sense, you could say it’s a positive thing that he died climbing, as opposed to died in a climbing accident. I mean, how—I don’t even know how to describe why it seems so obvious on some level—why that’s a beautiful thing, that he died doing what he loved.

But I feel now, and maybe there was a part of me that felt at the time when he died, that my philosophy on life and death on some level—it’s not like a hundred percent of me, but there is a big part of me that feels like—things are meant to happen for a reason.

And when I found out that he was in that accident, as hard as it was for me, I was almost not surprised. And, of course, on some level that’s because when you have someone in your life who’s an adventure sport athlete like a climber or someone who does a high-risk, high-consequence sport—there is an inherent risk and consequence that they’re gonna get killed in an accident.

And I guess for me—Eric and I were so close—I mean, we didn’t spend a lot of years of our lives together, but during the years that we spent together or during the months that we spent together if you wanna really be exact, I feel like I got to know him in his most vulnerable self. I got to know his most vulnerable self.

And I don’t just feel that way, but he told me that multiple times—that he felt comfortable exposing his most vulnerable self to me and that he had never felt that way with anyone before. And I can just say that he really was, for a long time, really suffering.

And I think, like I said before, a lot of people didn’t know that about him and so, I don’t want to focus on that part, but it is hard not to because it was a big part of his life. And he also had a lot of joy and a lot of beauty and a lot of love—he had so much love. So much love. And I certainly think that the love overpowered the suffering.

I’m not trying to say that the suffering was dominant. But the suffering was more than I have, and I’m a pretty emotional person and I’ve had a lot of emotional struggles in my life. He struggled with holding a job, he struggled with relationships. He struggled with mood and with feeling like he was worthy in this world.

When the accident happened, there was part of me—and more of me now feels more comfortable with this idea and I personally believe in reincarnation. I don’t think too much about it, but it just feels intuitive to me—and I think in the life that his soul was in, the body of Eric Klimt, he was really suffering.

And so, if he was gonna die in the way that he did, then what a beautiful way. You know? What better way could you ask for. I guess on some level, I’m supportive of that perspective, but I also do get a little annoyed when people say that, too, I guess. Because it almost undermines the meaning or power of the loss for the people that have lost him and maybe didn’t necessarily want him to risk his life on the level.

(exhales)

And now I work for hospice.

So, my current partner—we had known each other from working together eleven years ago in New Hampshire in North Conway, and reconnected actually, when his wife and mother of his two young children passed away of N stage breast cancer.

I reached out to him and eventually, he responded when he was able to emotionally and we ended up reconnecting on the level of the loss that we had both recently experienced. I think it’s not necessarily very common for someone in their thirties to experience a loss like that. I think we all have grandparents die and maybe we have like, a cousin die in an accident or something like that.

But most of us, I think, don’t necessarily lose someone close to us that young and, of course, as we get older we lose more and more people around us that are close to us. And, of course, suffering is, you know, the first noble truth in Buddhism and it exists, but we also don’t necessarily experience a lot of suffering when we’re young. We start to experience, maybe some of us do—but most of us start experiencing suffering with aging physically and socially. Suffering moves along its trajectory.

So, I think that’s one example of the way in which that loss has shaped my life. The person that I ended up with had a similar loss and it’s certainly helped me support him in his grieving process, and maybe he wouldn’t have been ready to be in a relationship with someone who hadn’t experienced a loss like that.

(KK): As if by some strange design, knowing that someone we loved died doing something they loved can give us a small comfort. It allows us to hold onto the notion that in their last moments on this planet, they were at their happiest. But generally, that isn’t always the case.

Regardless of the situation, you can’t just fix grief with an eloquent phrase alone. It can be hard to know what to say—oftentimes, we don’t. Words just feel inadequate and we’re scared to say the wrong thing. How do you respond when you recognize that someone’s in pain without making an assumption about their grief?

While there isn’t a ton of research out there, there’s certainly some correlation between trauma and empathy. There are actually three different types, and psychologists Daniel Goleman and Paul Ekman broke this concept down into cognitive, emotional, and compassionate empathy.

Cognitive empathy means comprehending what someone might feel during a difficult time and it tries to answer the question: “What are they going through?”. Emotional empathy refers to the ability to connect to the other person’s emotions, next answering how they feel about it. Expressing compassionate empathy goes beyond both cognitive and emotional empathy by being moved to help others after answering the first two questions.

Faced with the enormity of loss, Hayley gained a better understanding of all three and it directly impacted her life, both personally and professionally. It amplified her awareness and understanding in her profession as a nurse, and it helped foster a new old connection with her now-partner.

(HR): I have wanted to explore working with hospice for many years and just never did, but I think that everything happens for a reason and I feel like my current job in hospice as a nurse is the most meaningful job I’ve ever had in nursing, even though I’ve certainly taken care of patients who are on what we call “comfort care”.

You know, at the end of their lives in the hospital setting where the family or the patient has chosen to terminate any life-saving interventions. But it’s different when you’re in their home, and I think I certainly have much more empathy as someone who has suffered from my own grief and loss, then if I had not experienced that loss—not just as a hospice nurse, but in my everyday life. I think I have more empathy for anyone’s loss.

And when I found out about Eric’s accident, I was on a travel assignment and after leaving Northern Arizona, Eric and I had broken up. And I stayed in Arizona for, I don’t know, maybe nine months or so and was in a really good space and starting to feel really grounded after the initial shock of the breakup. And I felt strong enough that I could move on, because it’s never good to move on from something physically or make any drastic changes when you’re in the midst of grief.

And, of course, when I talk about grief in that sentence—I mean the grief of our breakup. So, when I started feeling more grounded in myself, I was ready to move on and I had gone to Arizona to be with Eric, so I felt no necessary reason to stay there long-term.

And so, I took a travel assignment in San Francisco in the ER and had been there for maybe a month when I found out. And I think initially, the first three days I took off of work and it was an intense emotion—I couldn’t really do much, but I had really close friends, thankfully, around me and taking care of me.

And one of them is a bodyworker and she was like, giving me massages and, I mean, it was so luxurious. I can’t even thank her enough, and she’s been through a lot of loss. So, it’s like that cycle of when you’ve experienced loss, you know how to support someone in loss. I mean, she was taking care of me the way a mother takes care of a baby and I felt like I needed that.

And on some level, I felt, because we had broken up—I felt on my own in the grieving process, especially initially. Because, you know, when you’re in a relationship with someone, if I had still been with him, then I may have been way more connected to the family and I really was on my own, so it was really important for me to have friends around me, holding me up.

And then, about three days after I found out, I really had to go back to work. I was on a travel assignment and I felt up to it. And I think the reason that I felt up to it was because when you’re a nurse, your job is to help people who are suffering. And so, it’s easier than like, going into customer service or trying to put on a fake, happy face and, you know, sell something. I think in the helping profession, especially in the ER where people are literally injured and dying and you’re helping the patient and you’re helping the families and, it’s almost easier to do your job. I felt like I was a better nurse during that time.

And so, then after I finished my assignment, it was perfectly timed for Eric’s memorial back in Baltimore—which was kind of amazing. And I don’t know if maybe Eric’s mom knew that my assignment was—I don’t know. I mean, I don’t think so. I think it just worked out magically.

So, I flew back and that was challenging—just to see his family. And if anything, I felt a lot of love from and for them, and it was really comforting to feel connected to them in that way. Every holiday, I feel like Eric’s mom and I send each other a text. She always sends me a happy birthday text and she’s just been really wonderful.

I did some travel nursing after San Francisco in Washington and I ended up in Bellingham for an extended assignment and then was working nights and just really needed to get off night shifts. So, I ended up taking a job as the medical coordinator for a wilderness therapy program in Southern Utah—in the desert. And I didn’t even really think about it when when I took the job, but it was forty-five minutes away from Zion.

And I think that—I mean, I’m learning as I get older that I’m a more spiritual person I think, than I may come across as. But I think that I was drawn, either subconsciously—or my soul, if you wanna call it that. Whether you call it subconscious or your soul or maybe it was just a coincidence, but I was drawn to that area at that time for some reason.

I got there around February and the anniversary of his death was March 9th, so I went to Zion. I wasn’t able to go on March 9th which was really hard for me, Sad for me, and frustrating, ‘cause I was on call twenty-four, seven during the week. I went on Saturday morning and got there just as his sisters were leaving the park, so I gave them hugs and saw them.

And it was interesting for me ‘cause I had been going through a phase of grief where I’d been really doing pretty well and I mean, of course, like you said, “Grief isn’t linear.” and there were times when I wasn’t missing him or thinking about him.

But during this whole time, from the time we broke up until basically a year ago, or I guess you could maybe say a year and a half ago—I was single on some level. Like, I was dating, but I wasn’t with someone in a relationship. And so, of course, if anyone knows what it’s like to love someone—when you aren’t in a relationship, naturally, your heart goes back to the person that you were last in love with. And so, that’s where my heart would go—is to Eric, whenever I felt alone or whenever I wanted to be with someone—my heart went back to Eric.

And, I mean, I love him. I still love him. We loved each other. But my heart on like, a “wanting to be in a relationship with someone” went back to him. And so, I was going about my life not realizing that I had any grief left, because that’s kinda how grief works. It just pops up when you least expect it. I was actually dating someone when I found out that he had died, and I ended up leaving that relationship after a few months because it was nearly impossible for me to be present in that relationship. Initially, he was supportive—the guy that I was dating. 

(KK): Everything happens for a reason, right? Hayley’s new job took her to St. George, which was only forty-five minutes outside of Zion and she wanted to honor Eric in some way, so it just felt natural to go into into the canyon, especially since she lived so close.

(HR): But it became clear that I needed to go through my process alone. So, when I took the job in Utah, I went over to Zion and I hadn’t been to Zion in nine years. And so, if anyone has ever been to Zion, it’s like, just kind of dauntingly awe-inspiring. It’s just huge. I mean they call it—what do they call it? Like, “God’s”—what do they call it? “God’s country”!

Because it’s, I mean, obviously there’s big LDS population down there, but it also is just very spiritually evoking, whether or not you’re religious. It’s just so incredibly beautiful and there’s something—there’s like some sort of an energy or vortex inside the canyon. It's really magical.

So, I went into the canyon and I had seen Moonlight Buttress nine years ago, but I didn’t remember where it was and when I ran into Kirsten—well, I didn’t “run into them”. We planned on giving each other quick hugs. They were on their way to a flight in Las Vegas and I was coming in later than I wanted to. And they had kinda told me where to get off at the shuttle, ‘cause it was the first day that the shuttle was running.

The day before, March 9th, was the last day that you could drive up to Moonlight and Eric, that day that he went up there or those days that he had gone up there, he was driving. He had driven up and parked his car nearby.

I was pretty emotional when I saw Kirsten and Nicole and didn’t anticipate feeling that way. I mean, I had like a full body nervous system reaction where I started shaking and crying and like,  my whole body was tremoring and I spilled my CamelBak. It started leaking and before I knew it, I had no water. 

(laughs)

It was all over me! So, it was just kind of like an emotionally charged situation that I was heading into. And I got on the shuttle and all these tourists were around me and they just—they were loud and laughing and they were just having a completely different experience, and that was really intense for me. And that contributed to the nervous system emotional reaction that I was having and, I mean, I was calm. It’s not like I freaked out or anything. But it was a big day for me.

So, I went up to the canyon and I got off at the stop that I thought that it was based on my memory and also, based on what Kirsten had told me, but she said something that I wasn’t listening to carefully because I was so emotional when I saw them. I wasn’t able to retain all of the words that she said.

So, I think I like, misheard her directions a little bit and ended up getting off at a stop too soon. I walked for a little bit and I was like, “This is not right. I’ve been here before. I remember—this is Angel’s Landing; this isn’t Moonlight Buttress.”

So, fifteen minutes up and fifteen minutes back. Started walking up the road, thinking maybe I would see it before the next shuttle stop, and I ended up just continuing to walk for like, two hours before I turned around—or maybe it was an hour and then I turned around and walked for another hour. But I basically walked all the way to Moonlight Buttress and turned around, but didn’t see it because I didn’t get around the bend.

And in my memory from nine years ago, I thought Moonlight Buttress was on the east side of the canyon, but it’s on the west side. So, I turned around and walked back—and at this point, I was feeling even more emotional, but also kind of deflated, like, I had failed in my attempt to honor Eric and it felt weird like, it wasn’t meant to be or something—that I was there and I didn’t know what to do. I was like, “Should I just go home?“ It just felt really deflating.

So, I was about to basically get on the shuttle and go back to my car and I saw a ranger. And there aren’t that many rangers in Zion. It’s not a very big park. So, I went up to him and he was wearing sunglasses. And I said, “Excuse me. Could you tell me where Moonlight Buttress is?”

He must have kind of sized me up or something and assumed that I looked like a climber, maybe? I don’t know. But he said, “Are you planning on climbing it?” Maybe because it’s a climb. I mean, that’s what people do—on Moonlight Buttress.

(laughs)

So, I said, “Well, no. I had a friend who died there a year ago.” And he kinda just stopped. Like, his whole body kinda froze and he took his glasses off, looked into my eyes and just put out his hand and introduced himself. He said his name is Derek and he said that he was on the recovery team for Eric, and obviously, it affected him—because I could see the way it affected him. And we just kinda had this moment, I started crying, and he immediately offered me a ride. So, we got in his truck and he drove me up there and we talked about how it had affected him.

And, I don’t know, it just felt really serendipitous that I had kinda run into him in that way, and it was almost like I couldn’t find the climb intentionally. Or the universe or Eric, someone, something was guiding me to connect with him. I think maybe it was important for him to connect to me and it was important for me to connect to him. I felt very alone in the whole process and then, when I connected to him, I suddenly felt like I’m not alone. I just felt more supported and it was pretty amazing.

So yeah, he just told me that he had been really affected by the incident and that things like that, of course happen, but they don’t happen very often, and especially not to climbers that are experienced in the way that Eric was. And he had to take some time off of climbing because, you know, he was of the same skill level as Eric, and so he felt like, “Well, if that happened to him, then it could happen to me.” and it was just powerful for him.

So, that was really crazy and then, I got out of the car and I went down to the base of the climb and just spent some time by the river. And then, I came back up after some time and sat by—not the last shuttle stop, but the shuttle stop that was closest. I think it’s Big Bend.

It was interesting because the whole park was so saturated with people—all of the shuttle stops, except for that one. And I think it’s just so far up that people don’t wanna go there or maybe it’s ‘cause there’s not really much there that most of the tourists are interested in. So, yeah, I mean, that was really heavy for me, but it was also something I needed to do and I’m not gonna say, “I don’t love him anymore” like I said before, but—

(KK): I think that love evolves.

(HR): Yeah.

(KK): I mean, I think that all love evolves.

(HR): Yeah. So, yeah. I mean, that was another big shift in my grieving process was when Patrick and I reconnected and I was able to let go of some of the grief that maybe still remained at that point. So, that’s kind of the trajectory of my grief I guess and, of course, it continues on some level, but it’s not as heavy as it was, of course.

(KK): Before I was a climber, an old friend imparted a few words of wisdom upon me: “Live your life and remember that nothing we do is in vain as long as we can look back and say that we were in it for the right reasons at the time.”

If you knew Eric in this lifetime, then you knew that he illuminated in a mysterious, visionary, and ultimately, hopeful manner the constant divisions in our hearts that make us all human. There is both the sad and the joyful, the dark and the light, and we hold both of these things in our hands. But when we put them together, we are exactly who we’re meant to be. 

If you find yourself struggling or know someone in need of help, reach out. Therapists and grief advocates are available. Having these kinds of resources and conversations can help promote more mental wellness and create a healthier culture surrounding things like depression, grief, and loss. 

This episode is in dedication to the Klimt family and to Eric. Thank you for the larger-than-life adventures, your laughter, your love, your ridiculous yet adorable mustache, and for filling the world with light in the short time that you were with us. “May your soul be free, and the view be breathtaking.”

(acoustic guitar intro)

(BRIAN FALLON): This is the ‘59 Sound.

Did you hear the fifty-nine sound coming through on grandmother's radio?
Did you hear the rattling chains in the hospital walls?
Did you hear the old gospel choir when they came to carry you over?
Did you hear your favorite song one last time?

To all the young boys, all the young girls,
All the young boys, all the young girls.

(KK): Even though I still have no idea what I’m doing—things are happening. And if you’d like to help out and support this podcast, please check out patreon.com (that’s P-A-T-R-E-O-N) where you can sponsor us for as little as $1 per episode. It really helps keep this podcast going, and I’m so grateful for all of your help. Special shout out to Cameron MacAlpine because he makes this thing sound good.

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