Episode 49: Good Grief
There are those who see grief as the final form of love—this one final act that we give to those we’ve lost. It’s also been said that it’s the price we pay for love, which is a funny way to look at it. But these two things unrelentingly go hand-in-hand.
On September 2nd, 2021, Tara lost her dad to Covid. But…it's complicated. During that time, well-meaning folk comprised of climbers, liberal activists—even celebrities—condemned those who refused vaccination. Social media was filled with far-left and far-right criticism. Like we said—it’s complicated. A year and a half after officially joining the Dead Dad Club, Tara sent one of her hardest multi-year climbing projects. But this story isn't really about that...well, sorta.
"Grief is an insurmountable pain. But at the same moment, I acknowledge that it is also a reflection of love. And while the mountains feel like they are falling over me, and the waves crashing into me, I can simultaneously understand that it is a result of such deep love. It is all love." - TK
This episode is in memory of James Reynvaan.
For the Love of Climbing is presented by Patagonia. Additional support is from deuter USA, Allez Outdoor, and Ocún.
Music by Chad Crouch. Additional music is licensed by Music Bed and Blue Dot Sessions.
Photo courtesy of Tara Kerhzner.
Catch up on podcast (pod-Kath?) updates and general life things: @inheadlights
This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Because therapy is for everyone.
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
(KATHY KARLO): This podcast is presented by Patagonia. Not bound by convention, Patagonia’s in business to save our home planet.
- It’s 2023, and modern climbers are more accomplished than ever, and we don’t just mean on the wall. Patagonia has always seen the value in being bold, whether it means pushing highpoints or having the audacity to demand more for our planet.
So, what’s it mean to be a “strong climber”? Full commitment to the sport and to our communities. It means not just working towards futuristic first ascents but also, a better future. And we aren’t going to get there alone.
For Patagonia’s 50th year, we’re looking forward, not back and together, we can prioritize purpose over profit to protect this planet. Get involved, read stories to get you out there, and join a community that values what we do off the wall as much as we do on. Because we’re Bolder Together. Find out more at patagonia.com/climbing.
- We get support from deuter, one of the leading backpack brands that will help you hit the trails with confidence and comfort, but most importantly—your snacks. Founded in 1898, deuter believes in fit, comfort, and working in the long term to offset CO2 emissions by teaming up with Climate Partner to invest in social and climate offset projects worldwide for select product—including their Guide and Vertrail climbing packs.
deuter packs are PFC-free—meaning no forever chemicals and they honor their Promise Lifetime Warranty since their packs were meant to be on your back, and not in landfills. So, you can focus on way cooler things like puppies, pocket bacon, and gettin’ sendy—whether at the crag or in the alpine.
(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:
(KK): 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.
(KK): Who is Ocún? More than prolific crack climbing gloves, Ocún has been making innovative gear engineered for climbing to improve your performance since 1998. Their climbing shoe designs are all original, developed and manufactured in Czech Republic and completely, one hundred percent gender neutral. Beyond their sticky rubber, Ocún is renowned for their hardware, harnesses, and the biggest lightest crash pad on the market. Find your new favorite climbing shoes and accessories at Backcountry, Moosejaw, CampSaver, and Amazon.
(KK): There are those who see grief as the final form of love—this one final act that we give to those we’ve lost. It’s also been said that it’s the price we pay for love, which is a funny way to look at it. But these two things unrelentingly go hand-in-hand. I do think that, in some ways, we’re all in the same club—some of us just don’t know it yet. And others already have the lifetime subscription—aka the worst club in the world.
On September 2nd, 2021, Tara lost her dad to Covid. But…it's complicated. During that time, well-meaning folk comprised of climbers, liberal activists—even celebrities—condemned those who refused vaccination. Social media was filled with far-left and far-right criticism. Like we said—it’s complicated.
A year and a half after officially joining the Dead Dad Club, the club nobody wants to join and membership is automatic, Tara sent one of her hardest multi-year climbing projects. But this story isn't really about that...well, sorta. It’s about the acknowledgment that grief from loss is also a reflection of love, and we think that The Good Place nailed it best.
“So, picture a wave. In the ocean. You can see it, measure it, its height, the way the sunlight refracts when it passes through. You can see it and know what it is. And it's there. And then it crashes into the shore and it's gone. But the water’s still there. And a wave is just a different way for the water to be, for a little while. You know, it's one conception of death for Buddhists: that the wave returns to the ocean where it came from, and where it's supposed to be.”
Grief is the thing that can stop you dead in your tracks. It’s sort of like the existential testimony to the significance of someone we’ve lost. And that significance endures time and space and oceans and mountains. And you can be certain that behind all deep grief, there’s also great love.
(TARA KERZHNER): When 2020 came around, I felt like things were kind of progressing in my career and it felt like I was in a good place. I was actually coming out to Oregon a lot during that time because I was working on To Bolt at Smith and I toiled so much. Like, I actually got really, really close the first year that I tried it. I one-hung it super fast and I just really felt like I was gonna do it and then, it just got super cold.
And then, the next year, I was sort of injured and I just couldn’t get to where I was before. But, in any event, I was toiling and suffering on my project—like climbers do. And meanwhile, I was spending all this really quality time with my dad. And I was in Bend and that was a lot of time that I was there—two toiling trips of not sending! And I’m really grateful for that time. It’s funny ‘cause I reflect on To Bolt or Not To Be—
(laughs)
—‘cause it’s this defining climb that I’ve always wanted to do. I don’t know if I wanna go back and try that route again ‘cause it’s like—
(sighs)
I actually don’t know if my shoulder can handle it, ‘cause it’s so shoulder-y. I wanna do it, obviously. But I’m so glad I didn’t do it. You know? If I had done it, I would have just left Oregon. And I’m glad I toiled and I’m glad that I split my tips and I’m glad I had bad days on it, because then I could go have good days with him in Bend.
And he came one day—he was always really funny about climbing. Like, I would show him the climbing videos for routes I wanted to do. And he would always be like, “I don’t know. Climbers—they just kinda sit around and look at their fingertips and stuff.”
And so, he comes and he sits under To Bolt and he watches me while I try. It’s not the first time he came to Smith and watched, but he came and watched me one day on To Bolt and he took—just, I don’t even know! How do you even be a stereotypical dad? He just like, took this erratic iPhone video where he’s like, zooming in and out at rapid speeds. It was just so funny to me because it was such a dad moment!
(laughs)
And then, he’s sitting under To Bolt and he’s like, “Hey. Do you have a piece of sandpaper?” And so, I give him a piece of sandpaper and he starts sanding his skin. He’s like, “Yeah, this is what climbers do. Now I feel like a real climber.” And he’s like, sitting there, sanding his skin, looking and making eye contact with everyone who walks by.
(laughs)
He was just a character. So, my dad was adopted and so, I looked like him when I was little and all the way through being an adult. And I think that that definitely tied us in a way that we never really talked about, but my identity as a Native American is tied to him and it always was.
And I think that, you know, every part of childhood—going through school, being made fun of, or whatever—there’s so many aspects of what you look like that become who you are. And I can’t think about what I look like without thinking about him ‘cause it’s like, that’s where it came from. I look like her too, but in different ways. You know?
It kinda started for me when I started doing work for Natives Outdoors, but I wanted to help with stories that helped Native communities. Like, I always thought my grandma—my dad’s mom—and how her story could have been different if things were different. And it wasn’t until later that I realized why things happened the way that they did for her. But anyways, I just wanted to do something on the backend.
And I started to lean into Natives Outdoors and do projects that benefited Native communities. I really trust Len and that’s why I felt comfortable doing that. I think it can be kinda scary to get into that work because not everybody’s doing the right thing, you know? But I really believe that Len is, and so, that was easy for me.
And then anyways, my dad—he leaned more into it, too. And I just felt like, just as I was starting to understand my own identity journey, my dad died and—
(pauses)
—all of that went with him. I mean, I still want to do work that benefits Native people, but I guess I feel—Yeah, it’s just weird. It’s like, I’m still me, but now I’m me without him. And me without him is really confused about who I am, in general.
(ALEX HONNOLD) (to himself): Ok, I’m Alex Honnold. You’re listening to the love of climbing podcast. It’s a funny, sad, somewhat uncomfortable podcast—
(louder)
I was like, “Wow, this is the opposite of my podcast. But, you know, here we go!”
(laughs)
(upbeat music)
“I’m Alex Honnold and you’re listening to For the Love of Climbing—”
—is it “to the”? Or “to—“ Do you say “to For the Love of Climbing Podcast”?
“I’m Alex Honnold and you’re listening to For the Love of Climbing Podcast.”
Yeah. Yeah, I see it.
“You’re listening to For the Love of Climbing Podcast. This is not a climbing podcast. Well, sorta. It’s a funny, sad, and somewhat uncomfortable podcast about choosing vulnerability. Here’s the show.”
Easy cheesy!
(KK): Hey. A quick heads up—this episode discusses adoption and briefly mentions suicide.
(TK): My name is Tara Kerzhner and I am in Boulder, Colorado where I live. And I’ve been climbing for, I don’t know. I think almost twenty years now. Wait, hold on. I’m not like, a mathematician so, this is a little challenging. I think it’s around eighteen years. I found climbing and was learning who I was outside of my parent’s house.
I grew up super religious and I am not religious and so, that transition was tough. And I think, during that time, having climbing was great. And then, I ended up getting divorced really early. So, I really fell in love with climbing during that time. So, we started dating and I was living with him out of wedlock and my parents found out and it was fucking intense. It was really, really intense.
This was probably the hardest time in my life with my dad. He was sort of going through this interesting religious transition and he was always was, you would say, a “man of god”. That’s probably what he would say. But he stopped his deep ties to organized religion at a certain point, and if anything about religion makes it into the podcast, I wouldn’t want to disrespect where he is coming from even though I don’t necessarily agree with it.
But at that time, I was so fresh out of the nest and I had decided I wasn’t gonna go to church anymore. And so, when I met my first husband, even though he was an Atheist, both of us kinda leaned quickly towards marriage and I don’t really know why. He was my first boyfriend. And he found out that I was living with this guy and it was this really, really crazy family drama and I didn’t talk to my dad for a while. And as I got older, stuff like that didn’t bother him at all. You know?
I grew up in Bend, Oregon and my parents were really wonderful, honestly. Obviously, as an adult, we all find the things that we talk about in therapy. We’re like, “I’m traumatized by you,”
(laughs)
I think it was mostly the religion stuff for me that was really hard. And I connected super deeply with my dad, always. I didn’t really have that as much with my mom. Yeah. I think you usually get one. If it’s not your father, it’s gonna be your mom. But you only—usually only get one that you’re really, really close to and I don’t really know why that is.
I really wanted to show, I think, my true self to my mom for the first time. Like, I told her for the first time I didn’t believe in god after my dad died and I think that was really hard for her to hear, but it felt really good for me to say.
But I also said things like, “I’ve done acid,” which is something I always wanted to tell my dad, but I never did. Because, one time, he texted me—I shit you not; he texts me: “I’m on acid.” And I get a text from him that says, “Have you ever done acid?”
I will never forget that moment! And I think that’s just such an indication of our closeness. We have always been very, very tied to each other, and on such a level that it’s incredibly hard to explain. And the fact that he texted me that is so bizarre to me, but not surprising at all. I couldn’t say anything—I was tripping too hard to look at my phone correctly. But I showed everyone I was with.
(laughs)
‘Cause I was like, “This is insane.”
(laughs)
And at his funeral, I remember everyone kept coming up to me and saying, “Your dad would call me every week.” So many people told me that, that I was like, “That is unreasonable!”— that he would call and contact so many people all the time, but he did! And that’s just who he was. Like, any time someone had a birthday or if someone was sick or any kind of event, he would text me and I would text them, you know? I feel a little bit in the dark now because he’s not.
He was just so considerate. I think because he felt quite abandoned by his mother and didn’t have a father growing up—like, a biological father. He had an adoptive family, but they were older and they died when he was not that old. And I think that that’s one of the reasons why he was such a good dad and so empathetic and so—
(trails off)
Yeah. He was a really amazing person. I think anyone who knew him would say that about him. But he had depression—because of being adopted. And just the stuff that goes along with being adopted. You will always—
(pauses)
Well, I don’t want to say this definitively for everyone, but for him, he felt abandoned. You know? Especially because his mom died relatively young. She left him with a babysitter essentially, and then, never came back. And then, she died of substance abuse shortly after that, and so his original last name is not “Reynvaan”.
(KK): One of the most common microaggressions heard by adoptees is: “You should be grateful,” —often from well-intentioned folk who perceive adoption as this shining beacon of hope. The concept of adoption exists across cultures and countries and can be traced back as early as Ancient Rome.
Eventually—inevitably—this early idea evolved into a complex, internationally recognized law. In many instances, the concept is deeply inflected by evangelical Christianity.
“You should be grateful,”—as in, the adoptee is so fortunate to have been given an opportunity to do this precious thing called life. But this kind of language centers adopters, not adoptees. And what’s underneath it and often less talked about are the systemic conditions that make it necessary to give up a child in the first place.
Transracial adoptees’ lives can be one of love and loneliness. If you can’t speak your own language, don’t know the traditions or celebrate your heritage, you become an outsider everywhere. These layers of loss can go on for generations. Tara and her dad started exploring his birth culture at a pace they both felt comfortable with, together.
(TK): Because I’ve always identified as exactly who I am—as Native American and white. That’s who I’ve been my entire life. That’s who I was when we went to the Rez to try to become tribal members. But we couldn’t fill out the family tree because he didn’t know who his dad was, and so, he didn’t want to register if we couldn’t register me.
But anyways, I think for him, for a long time—it hurt him. You know? It abandoned him. It left him, and he’s like, “I don’t wanna talk about that Native stuff.” It was hard for him to connect to that part of himself. And then, when I started to lean into Natives Outdoors and do projects that benefited Native communities, he leaned more into it, too.
And yeah, exactly. We were learning together. It felt better to do it with him. I went to the Rez for the first time without him not that long ago and it’s hard. Like, it’s different, you know? It’s just a scary thing. And I think it’s really—all of it, everything that I’ve just explained is a pretty common disconnected Native story. You know? You’re just confused about who you are.
I mean, I’m not saying it’s easy for other racial identities, but I think Native specifically can be confusing. I don’t know if you read “There, There”, but it’s a pretty good book. It’s kinda sad, but it’s a lot about disconnected Native people living in the city and what it looks like to try to understand your Native identity. Man, that last film—that really got me.
(drum beat)
(MALE VOICE SINGING IN NATIVE LANGUAGE): Then back to earth.
‘wagyaan tlagee sdiihlsaang
You inspire us
Dang sah ahl iidl’ gudanggang
Precious Leader Woman
K’ul Jaar Kuuyaas
(KK): The film that Tara’s referring to is “Precious Leader Woman”, directed by Cassie de Colling and written by Spencer O’Brien and Elle Maija Tailfeathers. This documentary takes us through Spencer’s professional snowboarding career as she reconnects with her Indigenous culture.
(drumming continues)
(singing continues)
(MALE ELDER TRIBAL MEMBER): Names are given by the aura you project and the things you do. People aren’t remembered by what you say, but what you do. You could have a million words and say nothing but when you do something, they’ll remember.
(laughs lightly)
(drumming and singing fades)
(SIGINAAK COURT LARABEE): No matter who you are as Indigenous people, is that throughout a certain time of your life, if you’re not connected to your culture already, it’ll start bubbling up within inside of you. There’s anything from DNA memory passed down from your ancestors to just the simple calling of your dreams.
(SPENCER O’BRIEN): All I wanted to be was a snowboarder, so I never cared about people knowing anything other than that.
(FEMALE ELDER TRIBAL MEMBER): She’s a Precious Leader Woman. You know just by looking at her. She strikes you right away.
(TK): That really got me. That hit close to home because we also have, just like any other Native person I know, has boarding school stuff. And when I learned about the boarding schools is when I finally understood why my grandma took the path that she did.
She was not raised by her parents. She was raised by her grandma and I think her mom died when she was quite young. And it’s just like, this trickle-down thing. You know? And then, you have my dad who had depression and that really, until the moment he died, that was so there for him and so a part of the conversations that I was having with the nurses—was his depression.
So, the boarding schools across North America—it was just one of the things that was used to basically eliminate the Native race and Native people. Children and young people were taken and put in boarding schools. And I have the records from my family’s time in boarding schools, and you just see the in and outs. It’s like those old report cards that were handwritten? It’s like that. And then, it has her name on it, when she was brought in, and records that relate to her time there.
And then, you look—I looked—at the family tree and what happened, including an extremely long obituary that my great-grandmother has because she was a prominent member of the tribe. Yeah, it’s just really sad. You kinda see right when the family starts to fall apart.
My dad had told me that he had thoughts of suicide when I was quite young. After he died, I had a conversation with my mom and my mom was surprised. She was like, “I didn’t know that you knew from that young. You know, I didn’t know he was telling you that.” But my dad and I were just so close. Like, we talked about so much.
(KK): Between 1819 and 1969, thousands of Native American children, some as young as four, were forced from their homes and sent to these boarding schools. Over 400 schools have been identified across thirty-seven states in the U.S. Upon arrival, Native children were stripped of all physical markers of their Indigeneity.
A first-of-its-kind federal study uncovered more than 500 deaths, likely due to overcrowding, malnutrition, and unsanitary conditions. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland is the first Native American to hold a cabinet post and initiated the study with the hope that it can inspire long-term support for Indigenous communities.
(DEB HAALAND): I am here because my ancestors persevered. I stand on the shoulders of my grandmother and my mother, and the work we will do with the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative will have a transformational impact on the generations who follow.
(TK): I think I always knew that if my dad got Covid, that he would either become very sick or die. And so, it was during a time in which the park was open, but we were trying to keep it open—one of the stipulations was that people would wear masks. And Oregon was particularly strict—way more than Colorado, it seemed like. And my dad was so sweet. Like, I wanted to wear a mask—not for me. I’m doing it for him. And he wore a mask for me ‘cause he knew it’s what I wanted. But I just wanted to keep him safe.
There’s this interesting dynamic around Covid where one of the first things that people ask you is, “Did they have pre-existing conditions?” Which is kind of interesting because if you have a family member that dies of cancer, they wouldn’t ask that—even though those sorts of things also affect it, you know? It was just weird. The information around Covid was so fascinating to me because it created this really weird social dynamic.
But yeah, my dad had asthma just from working in construction for so many years, and he also had had a heart attack several years ago and his heart wasn’t great. And I just wanted him to be healthy and he had always kinda told me, “If you lived in Bend, we could go to the gym together!”
And I always carry this guilt with me about that ‘cause I knew that if I did live in Bend, I would. Because we talked every day. He would often call me from his walks, but it was hard for him to motivate to do the walks, and if I was just there, then he would have done them more. And then, maybe he would have been healthier, you know?
(sighs)
And nobody knows what the right way to talk about death is when one of your friends goes through something like that or someone in your community. I don’t know. People just don’t know how to talk about death. I mean, I didn’t.
(KK): It’s not a secret that we don’t like talking about death. But we do have a lot of questions. There’s something about it that makes us want to assign meaning to it because otherwise, we’re just existing on a giant rock spinning through outer space. And when it happens to someone we know, we tend to look a little harder—and that is so profoundly human.
(TK): I did the same thing when a friend of mine died. My first question was, “How, exactly?” You know? It’s like, I had to understand the exact situation in which he died and I don’t know why. And I caught myself in that moment ‘cause he actually died a couple days after my dad died.
And in a weird way, his girlfriend and I have become closer through the experience, you know? Even though our experiences are really different. I think just having someone to see you. Eliza sees—I mean, you also. You know, you go through loss and you can see it.
Eliza said it really well where—I really like this ‘cause I love Harry Potter, but—in the part in Harry Potter where he can see the Thestrals after he’s had loss in his life and he’s seen death. Eliza was like, “Going through loss is like all the sudden, you can see the Thestrals. You know, you can see more colors of the rainbow. Your highs are higher than you ever thought. Your lows are lower than you ever thought they could be.” It’s like, the spectrum of color that you see is more broad after loss.
(inhales)
So, it’s like—yes. Life can be more beautiful, I think, after loss—weirdly. But it can also be so much darker than you ever thought it could be. I think that’s really hard to explain to people. And I wonder why it is that it’s so universal that we talk about it in such a way that it’s like—
(trails off)
We talk about it in a way—like, “I’m hungry! I have grief. I’m hungry, I’m no longer hungry. I have grief, I no longer have grief.” I think grief is just something that you carry with you for the rest of your life. And it’s always there, whether or not you can look at it or not. Sometimes, I have those moments where my heart drops and I think about something that makes me really sad and—
(pauses)
—the pain, the depth of that drop is just as deep as it was the day that my dad died. It’s just whether or not I choose to go there or not. But it’s weird because it’s like, there is a spacial feeling to it. I don’t know how to explain that. It’s like, when you go over a bump in the car and you kinda—it’s like, there’s a distance in which your heart drops. And I think the distance is the same, it’s just that I’ve learned to put some guardrails around that hole, you know?
This is gonna sound ridiculous but, so after my dad died—while he was in the hospital, I read him the first book of Harry Potter over the phone. Because I was talking to him every day and I was there on the phone with him all day, every day. I basically stopped my life when he went to the hospital with Covid. I just stopped doing everything—
(inhales)
(pauses)
You know, I don’t know. Sometimes, he couldn’t talk. Like, as it got worse—as his condition got worse, he was put on—not on a ventilator because he was terrified of a ventilator—but he was put on a CPAP machine. He was on oxygen—he could barely talk at the end. And so, it was better for me to just be reading something. And after he died, I decided to finish the series in an audiobook and I listened to the entire Harry Potter series from book two to the finish, repeatedly, for about a year and a half—straight. So—
(laughs)
I didn’t let myself sit in it, you know? And I have these moments where I know that I still haven’t really let myself. It’s hard. It’s really hard to—I’ve reflected on it—a lot. I wanted to do this podcast.
(KK): Yeah.
(TK): It’s tough to go there, but it’s important. And I had this moment the other day where I was walking my dog and my podcast died, or my phone died or something. So, I didn’t have anything to listen to.
And then, this hawk flew across the sky and I always think about him when I see hawks because, of course, we want to tie the people who are no longer here to things that are. And I had this realization that he’s finally free—free of his depression and free of the pain. He’s not in pain. He’s free of his anxiety and stress and just that constant having to work to stay afloat.
(KK): Yeah. And what kind of feelings does that bring up?
(TK): It made me feel like I was being a little bit unfair by not letting him just be free. ‘Cause I was like, I just want him to say here. I want it to stay as close as it can to me, ‘cause I don’t wanna let him go. And then, I watched the bird fly majestically away into the sunset and I was like, “Alright. That’s nice—whatever.” I had this crazy moment actually where—have you seen the show ‘Reservation Dogs’?
(KK): Mm-hm.
(TK): So, I watched this one episode where they’re talking about someone who passed away and they’re sitting on this roof at a job site, a construction job site, which is fitting because of all my dad’s years in construction. And they see this big “thing” in the sky and it’s meant to be like, a spirit, in that moment.
And in that episode, they see it and they’re acknowledging it as one of the characters, Daniel, who’s passed away. And I’m watching the episode and I’m looking at the “thing”—kind of thinking as a video editor. I’m like, “That looks not realistic.” You know? And I kinda laughed at it. And then, I had a thought where I was like, “Well, that would be nice, Dad. Could be cool if you showed up like that.”
(laughs)
And I was like, “Whatever.” Next day, I drive to Durango for the Native Outdoors retreat and I see this huge flock of birds that made me think of my dad. And I was like, “I’m gonna stop. I’ll stop. I’ll stop and take a photo.” So, I pull over and I turn the car around. As soon as I turn the car around, in the sky is this big, identical orb-thing. And I’m like, “What the fuck?”
So, I took some photos of it because I was like, “I feel insane right now.” And I took probably like, six or seven photos of it. And it’s crazy. It looks unreal. It’s not the sun. It was like, the next day. It was like him being like, “Yeah, well. I can if I want to.” You know? ‘Cause he’s been haunting my dreams, or he really haunted my dreams for a while there, lurking. You know? And I’d be like, “It would be cool if you could show up in a way that was fun for me.” You know?
(both laugh)
(KK): In September 2020, a subreddit thread popped up. It quickly expanded to almost 400,000 members, becoming the tenth fastest-growing subreddit that month. It was named after former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain, who died from Covid-19 in July of 2020. And it’s just one grim corner of the internet dedicated to showing users real-life consequences of being unvaccinated.
Whether someone opted out of receiving the vaccine, be it for health reasons or family dynamics or any plethora of others, social media sites turned into a haven of misinformation. Facebook, in particular, struggled to weed out false content. And anybody with an email address and access to the world wide web took to their platform to voice their opinion.
But the problem doesn’t necessarily lie with those who are vaccine-hesitant or resistant. In many instances, low reports of vaccine uptake in communities was due to structural inequality. This applies in other arenas as well, such as food insecurity, unhealthy weight, employment, and alcohol and drug misuse.
Public shaming isn’t a new concept, and this idea of third-party punishment can be a way of signaling our own virtue. Because when it comes to moral judgment, we tend to do it selectively—and often without the full context.
If there’s any truth that should stand out more than the rest, it’s that context matters. And sure, it’d be a lot easier if we were all just divvied up into “good” and “bad guy” camps. The hero and subsequent villain. But when is life ever that black and white? When is shaming, or this growing mob mentality, ethically justifiable?
(TK): Probably one of the things I wanted to talk about in this was—
(pauses)
Well, I’ll just start by saying, my dad was not vaccinated. He was very on the fence about getting vaccinated. I think that there, as we all know, was a lot of misinformation. And at the end of the day, the vaccine saved lives. But I’ve had people come up to me who didn’t know my dad died of Covid and say stuff like, “People who were unvaccinated deserved to die.”
I firmly believed in vaccines—believe in vaccines—and, you know, for better or worse, I listen to my public healthcare officials. But I think what we should try to do as a society and as people, and in the climbing community especially, is just try to have a little bit of empathy and grace for experiences that we don’t understand, regardless of politics.
You know, I have a lot of respect for religious people, actually. Not that all anti-vaxxers are religious people. But I think that we need to try to have space for those people, and love, too— because I just think that that’s the right thing to do.
Like, my situation with my dad. He was in between a rock and a hard place—being told two different things. He was confused. You know? Also, he didn’t have a formal education. So it’s like, how can you really sit back and judge what that person’s choice was? I just think it’s important for the climbing community to try to—
(pauses)
—maybe not jump to conclusions. Just try to take in information, learn things. Try to understand both sides of the story and have empathy for people because anyone who dies of Covid—a nurse told me, “I would not wish that on my worst enemy.” Just that the death from Covid is really gnarly, and it’s not pretty and it’s really sad. I feel for all the people and families who have lost someone.
I was able to get my dad to register to get vaccinated and he was going to get vaccinated. It took a full-on child tantrum on the phone. I remember I was like, “I’m fucking going for this. I’m gonna cry until he says he’s gonna get vaccinated.” And it did! And then, he finally agreed to it.
And it was during the time where vaccines had just come out and his appointment was canceled. I mean, he’d always been the kinda guy that would never even go get a check-up. He hated the doctor. So, it was like pulling teeth to get him to go for the first time to sign up, you know? And then, I couldn’t get him—ever—to do it, again.
And at the same time, he had other people in his life that were really against the vaccine. Like, strongly against the vaccine. People who he cared about and respected, and people who I care about and respect, too. And I think that that was a really hard, complex thing to go through.
On the way to the hospital, he called me—‘cause he drove himself to the hospital, which broke my heart. It broke my heart to drive his car home at the end. It was just in the parking lot ‘cause he drove himself to the hospital. That made me really sad.
And he told me, he was like, “I’m just in between a rock and a hard place with you and—” named the other person who was trying to convince him not to get vaccinated. And so, he just said that he was just stuck in between these two dialogues of me, trying to get him vaccinated, and then, the other people who were trying to keep him from getting vaccinated—for reasons that were really meaningful to them.
And he was just so confused. So, he put it off—and then, he got Covid. And anyways, he ended up in the hospital and—
(slowly)
I was terrified. You know?
My dad is an artist—he was a lapidary artist. And so, he makes all of these cabochons which are like—a cabochon is the name for the stone that gets set into a necklace. But his were so artistic that they’re actually just pieces of art in their own right.
And so, I would just hold them all day long. And at the time, I wasn’t sleeping and I was self-medicating with prescription drugs that were not prescribed to me, until the end when he kinda became so delusional because of the disease that he would forget that he called. So, he would call me over and over and over again through the night. And I would just talk to him and leave my phone on, sometimes. I started sleeping in our spare room so that I could be available to him at any hour.
And anyways, there were some highlights—like, it seemed like he was gonna turn around for a second there. And at the time before he got sick, I was trying this route up at the Monastery in Colorado. It’s a route called Third Millennium and it’s a really beautiful wall. I don’t know if you’ve been there, but it’s just aesthetically stunning.
And I had been trying this route. It goes up the middle of the wall. It’s the same wall that Grand Ol’ Opry’s on, which is a really famous climb, and Third Millennium’s just to the left of it. But I think, I mean, all of the routes there are beautiful but when I first saw that wall, I was like, “What is that line?” And it goes up the middle and it climbs this black streak.
Just because I’m me, I had to do the easier one first. I was like, “I gotta do the 13c before I try the 13d!” And so, I did that one year and then, I came back the next season and started to try Third Millennium. And then, my dad got sick. And I wasn’t eating or sleeping or anything like that. I was super emaciated and I went climbing a few times while he was in the hospital—maybe twice. Maybe more. I’m not sure.
But the drive out there is a little long and you lose service at one point, so I remember that was really hard for me to decide to have those climbing days. But I felt like I really needed to escape, in some way. And so, I would call the nurses and check in on him before I went out of service, and then I would do the hike into the Monastery.
Once I got to the crag, I would solo up the back of the wall—it’s probably like, a 5.6 or something, and there’s a little bit of service. You can see the Diamond and just sit up there—it’s really beautiful, you know? And I would sit up there and talk to him on the phone, and then, I would call him in between my tries.
And my burns were pretty emotionless.
(laughs)
You know? As you could probably imagine. But I was climbing well. I was one-hanging it and when my dad died, I tried it a little bit. It felt good to robotically climb, but I didn’t end up sending it until the next year. I mean, I was like a shell of a human.
But I realized that sitting on top of that rock was ultimately some of the last times that I talked to him. I was able to be there when he died. I flew to Oregon. They only allow you to see Covid patients when it’s end-of-life, and actually, we were really lucky that they did that for us.
Greg and I went to the Verdon after he died. And it’s funny—my therapist, she made me think of this peaceful place where I’m completely at ease, like an emotional happy place I can go to if I feel stressed or something. And it definitely [was]. I mean, The Verdon is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been, so I just put myself right there. I think it will always be a special place to me because I was going through what I was going through back then.
I had some sweet grass from the Nez Perce Reservation, which is where we’re from, so I would burn that. I brought it with me to the Verdon and I burned it every night so that he knew where to go. So that he could haunt the right person.
(laughs)
And I would light it outside the window and wave it around so that, you know, I’d be like, “Just want him to know.” ‘Cause I was lighting it the whole time. And anyways, that sweet grass will always make me think of this time in my life. I was actually pouring him a little bit of my beer every night in this little cup that was terracotta. And so, the cup would absorb the beer and I’d be like, “He drank it!”
(both laugh)
“It’s amazing! He wanted that IPA.” I mean, if I really loved him, I would pour him a whiskey ‘cause that’s what he really likes, but. The next season—
(pauses)
—in the spring, I was sort of starting to finally kinda feel—
(inhales)
I don’t think there’s a right word to say how I was feeling. But I was feeling ready to try hard in a climbing project again.
(KK): We’re gonna take a short break. We’ll be back.
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(TK): I think that my dad really believed in me. He was really proud of me, and I know that he still is—la la la. “He’s still proud of you!” But who’s proud of me now? Like, I have to be proud of myself. That’s a lot to carry. So, that’s probably the biggest thing. I miss texting him every day.
Somebody wrote online—Jenny Bruso, actually. It’s super weird, the way that she talks about grief really resonates with me, and I think talking about grief resonates with a lot of people, but the words that she chooses really resonate with me. She said something like, “I’m no longer me. I’m me without.” That’s how I feel. I’m no longer me. I’m me without him.
I also had this crazy thing that happened to me the morning after he died. I woke up—oh, my god. That might be the worst I’ve ever felt in my entire life. It was not even the moment that he died, but the next morning—waking up and realizing that my worst nightmare had come true.
I woke up that morning because I felt one of his rocks fall physically onto my chest bone. And I heard the noise, and I felt the feeling. I woke up, grabbing my chest, and then, realizing that he had died. And I felt like he understood me more than anyone else. Like, my husband understands me so well, and that would be the only other person I can imagine that would check that box for me, but we were connected deeply.
I have this video of him. I’m saying something about asking him about his connection to rocks and to mine. And he says, “Well,” and he looks at me as I’m filming him, and he goes, “You know how connected we are.” So. I feel like a part of me is gone. I know that people say that about grief, but man, we were just so fucking close. It’s crazy.
I always told my husband I would not be ok if my dad died, and that was my biggest fear in life. In a way, it’s like I have nothing else to fear now. Definitely shortly after my dad died, I suddenly was no longer afraid of flying. I was like, “I don’t care. I can die in this plane. Who cares?”
(laughs)
But, you know, I have a lot of love for my husband and my friends and stuff like that. I think that love—well, I think that grief is love, actually. That’s the crazy part about grief that we don’t realize. It’s this deeper corner—this side corner. It’s actually not a side corner at all. It’s a whole other room of love in a house. You just didn’t have the key to that door before grief.
And it may hurt a lot but it also, like I said, the spectrum of colors you can see are so much more broad. It’s so many more colors. You’re like the manta shrimp, all of a sudden. Manta shrimp!
(laughter)
We’re just like, horses with the blinders on, on the side. And then, you experience something like grief, and then, you can see a lot more of the world, actually. It’s crazy, ‘cause you feel like walking around and living your life after you’ve lost someone close to you and experiencing grief on a really deep level—
It’s like, there’s just this knowing that you have a certain amount of perspective that others don’t have—you don’t want them to have it, you know. Of course. But you connect deeper with people who have gone through grief, for sure. Like Eliza and I. You know. Or other friends. It’s a tough thing to see until you actually really see it.
(ELEANOR SHELLSTROP): I was never good at being sad. Partly because my mom straight-up told me not to be. But this is sad, man.
(CHIDI ANAGOYNE): Picture a wave. In the ocean. You can see it, measure it, its height, the way the sunlight refracts when it passes through. And it's there. You can see it and know what it is. It’s a wave. And then, it crashes into shore and it's gone. But the water is still there. And a wave was just a—
(pauses)
—a different way for the water to be, for a little while. You know, it's one conception of death for Buddhists: that the wave returns to the ocean where it came from, and where it's supposed to be.
(ES): Not bad, Buddhists.
(CA): Not bad. None of this is bad.
(TK): I think the part that scares me is I think that my identity as a Native American—it feels farther away. But having my dad around—it was like we were holding hands through this, you know? So, now that he’s not there, I have to get to a place where I am ok with my identity—whatever that is. It’s just weird ‘cause it’s like, most people just have a normal grandma and grandpa situation. You know?
(laughs)
And I don’t. And I’m not traumatized by it, but I did grow up with a dad that had depression and that did affect him in his death, you know. I think about that a lot. I think about that when I think about him being free. I think about that trickle-down effect that we were talking about earlier and I think about being unencumbered by it all. I kinda joke about him chirping down at me or whatever, being like, “You were right! God’s not real.”
(both laugh)
Or he’s like, “You were wrong! You’re fucked.”
(KK): No living human knows what happens when we die. Do we enter eternal nothingness—free of emotional turmoil and floating through the universe in the elements or the stars? Or do we cycle back into another life and body, given another chance to do it all again?
Nobody knows, and maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe that’s what drives us to answer the question: what does living mean to you? And we mean—all of it. The good, the bad, the endless conflict, occasional joy, 25-cent wing night!
Hopes, fears, gratitudes, platitudes. Lonely days, your favorite song, weather patterns, Ted Talks, and self-aware hip-hop references. Everything from disease, violence, vast memories, and the remembrance of things that are now gone. It’s all one, big, endless travail—until it’s not.
Maybe we do get absorbed into universal consciousness. But until then, it all gets woven into one moment, one breath, one life. Tara’s time in the Verdon preceded going back to the Monastery, back to Third Millennium, and back to one of the last places that she shared with her dad.
(TK): I knew I wanted to go out there and try it again and—
(long pause)
I didn’t have partners. It’s really hard to find partners for out there! So, I just started mini-traxing it and I would go out there by myself. And those moments, when I first started going out there, I would sit on top of the rock and set up the mini-trax in the same place where I had been making those phone calls. I would kinda sit there and see the birds and think that they were us or whatever.
The thing about mini-traxing at your limit—
(laughs)
—like, alone. Completely alone—is that you can really let your emotions go. I am not a screamer in climbing, at all. If anything, I’m silent. Not that I’m saying that you can’t be a screamer, but I definitely try to be aware of myself and others at the crag and try to be respectful of the space around me and the people around me, and try not to make it all about myself or something.
(laughs)
I don’t know. I don’t bro out much when others are at the crag, but I was really getting into it when I was on mini-trax by myself, which is actually kinda hard because it has a V7 right off the ground. And so, you always kinda felt like you were gonna—like the line would stretch and you would hit the ground or something. But it didn’t! It wasn’t like that.
(laughs)
I mean, you would just like, softly hit the ground.
(KK): Right, right. Yeah.
(TK): It would be the most anti-climactic—
(makes falling sound)
(both laugh)
And anyways, I realized I had to start leading it. So, I started climbing out there with Matt Samet, and he’s an awesome climbing partner. We’re also the same height, so it was really awesome to share beta with him. I feel like I never climb with people who are my height! I’m completely average in every way—I’m 5’6”. You know?
(laughs)
But a lot of my female climbing partners are short and my male climbing partners are 5’9”. So, there’s nobody who’s my size. And, you know, it’s just cool to share beta with somebody ‘cause I often find that I’m just too short to do the dude beta, by a little bit. But I’m not short enough to do the short beta!
(laughs)
How it ends up going for me is I typically end up figuring out a way to do the dude beta, but I’m really starfished. And that is tricky for me. And anyways, Matt came in and he really helped with the beta and situation with the route and everything. We both secretly agreed it’s 14a. Not secretly. It definitely feels closer to 14a, but it’s a bit of an older route, so. Actually, Tommy took 14a.
(laughs)
So, anyways. I was having the time of my life realizing that I was gonna do the route and I was so excited. And then, I one-hung it from the third bolt to the top and I was like, “Oh, shit. I’m close.” And as soon as I got close, it just hit me. As soon as I realized I could do the route, I realized that I would have to close a chapter that I didn’t wanna close. And I didn’t really wanna send. I didn’t want to stop going there, didn’t want to end trying the route because if I finished the route, would I finish the grief?
It was crazy because in an unexplainable way, doing that route became a really big part of my grief and I started to kinda fear sending—
(inhales)
—which is fine, because then I got really sick and I had to take a couple weeks off. But I knew that I needed to do the route for us, for me and for my grief. Not for me and my dad, but me and my grief.
(laughs)
And, of course, I had this feeling like, “What’s gonna happen when I send? I don’t know. I’m probably gonna cry,” is what I thought. That day, I had brought one of my dad’s cabochons with me to the crag and I climbed the route with it in my pocket. I don’t remember which one it was, actually. This sounds so dumb, but at the rest, I was like, “Alright. We got this.” You know? I don’t know—just like, talking to the rock.
And I stuck the move that I’d been falling on. And from that point to the top, it’s 12b. So, it’s just like, a short 12b that you could totally fall on—it has bad feet! But I would warm up on that part every day, so I felt pretty solid. But still, you could slip.
I basically got to the rest and had the 12b and then I sobbed my way through the 12b section. I was grabbing holds and actively sobbing as I was rock climbing. And it was so funny ‘cause I got to the top and as soon as I grabbed the anchor, I just went into convulsions.
It wasn’t about the route or the difficulty. I mean, first of all, climbing is important to me. But climbing is not that important to me. I’m not gonna convulsively sob about climbing a hard route. It’s just not who I am. And I clipped the anchor and I couldn’t even breathe. And it was just such an unreal experience. Like, I hated it and I loved it. You know? I was happy to send. It’s a stunning route.
But the experience and the connection to my grief was such a moving experience that I never knew that climbing could bring that out of me. And this guy—‘cause I was like, “Oh, my god.” I was like, “I’m so sorry!” to everyone at the crag ‘cause I had just totally made this complete ruckus! You know? And there were other people climbing that day—there was somebody on Grand Ol’ Opry, I think, at the time!
(laughs)
And I’m up there, just fully losing my shit and so, I apologized which is, of course, the first thing I did. And this guy’s like, “It’s ok. I’ve totally cried before when I’ve sent a route,” He was so nice but I was like, that is just not at all what is going on here.
But then, I just sat at the top of the route and cried more and came down and I haven’t been back. But I’m gonna go back this spring’s actually because I’m gonna rebolt the route. The bolts are falling out of the wall. So, it’s a really good reason to go back to this place that I clearly can’t let go of, like Harry Potter.
It feels like a Harry Potter situation—that I have to just keep going there forever. I mean, I’m happy to go there forever. It’s a beautiful place. I don’t know if I’m strong enough but I would totally go try Grand Ol’ someday if I was fit again!
But yeah, it was just such a crazy experience. I just never—
(pauses)
I just can’t even explain what that felt like. You know? In a way, I think that my climber friends are like, “You’re just obsessing over this climb ‘cause you wanna send it.” You know? And I think that I was so unwilling to close any door. I was so unwilling to close any door ‘cause I was afraid that my dad might wanna walk through it, that sending that route would be closing a door—and what if he was trying to walk through that door?
I am not like a woo-woo person. I don’t believe in god. Like, I barely think I’m a Pisces. Just kidding, I’m like super Pisces. Did your tone change?
(laughs)
I’m just kidding! But I really started to have crazy experiences after he died that felt pretty unreal. I mean, like the one I described with the thing in the sky. And then, it really felt like he was there in that moment.
And it’s just like, unexpectedly, that route had become so woven into my grief and so woven into my dad and this relationship and his death. And, to me, looks like the way that the sweet grass is woven together and it’s just all tied together and burning off this beautiful smell, even though it’s really painful.
(KK): This episode is in memory of James Reynvaan.
(TK RECORDING): You don’t necessarily have a super close connection with your Native American heritage, but sometimes you feel like this is—
(VOICE OF JAMES REYNVAAN): I feel like I belong with nature. ‘Cause when I went back to the Rez, you know, I had a pretty spiritual feeling just being amongst the land and the river and the people. You know, the land—
(TK): Yeah.
(JR): —was what first touched me and moved me. It was kinda like, I belong here. Like I belong to that place where my tribe is from.
(TK): You know, the hardest route I’ve ever climbed is on original Nez Perce Land.
(JR): Where’s that?
(TK): In Idaho.
(JR): Ah.
(TK): This place in Idaho. The hardest route I’ve ever done. I didn’t realize it until later, but it was, which I thought was kinda cool. You know?
(JR): That is cool.
(sound of rocks clinking)
I feel very zen when I’m doing it. I like to sit here and grind on the rock, and let my mind wander sometimes. You know, people say they have a metaphysical property, and I do believe that. You know, I do think they have some type of metaphysical thing going on with you!
(TK): What do you think about your affinity for rocks, and then mine?
(JR): My affinity for rocks and yours?
(TK): Yeah, don’t you think it’s interesting that we both have…
(JR): ‘Cause you like climbing rocks and I like grinding and shaping them.
(TK): Yeah.
(JR): Well, you know how connected we are.
(TK): Yeah. I was just wondering if you also felt like there was a connection.
(JR): Oh, absolutely. I see a lot of myself in you. All the time.
(KK): You’re listening to For the Love of Climbing Podcast. A huge thank you to Deuter, one of the leading backpack brands that will help you hit the trails with confidence and comfort. A big shout out to Allez Outdoor for supporting the Access Fund and 1% for the Planet. And to Ocún—innovative gear engineered for climbing to improve your performance. And thanks to Patagonia. Not bound by convention, Patagonia is in business to save our home planet.
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