Apr 28, 2026
Ten years ago today my mom died — ten years as a card-carrying member of the dead parent club. Cheers to all of us.
I think that death anniversaries have a weird sort of pressure, like you’re supposed to do something meaningful with the day. Light a special candle. Call someone. Post a photo with a “missing you everyday” caption. There’s no one right way to spend it I guess.
I felt like reflecting a little bit differently.
I wasn’t raised in a super outdoorsy family. Sure, I went camping with my dad once every summer and enjoyed hanging out at the beach, but that’s sort of the whole extent of things. I learned only learned to ski when I was 12, and I spent most of my childhood in the dance studio. I wasn’t one of those Canmore-outdoorsy-nepo-baby kids who’ve been touring hut-to-hut since they were 2. I’ve noticed that a lot of people who fall deeply in love with the outdoors later in life usually have some sort of fucked up reason why.
My mom’s death is mine.
10 years ago, I was 16. Super inconvenient time for your mom to die. Obviously, it sucked.
In the years after, I found myself in rivers, on mountains, surfing foreign oceans in countries I’d never been to, and taking god-awful jobs — like scrubbing campsite pit toilets — just to maximize my time outside.
For a long time, I didn’t connect any of it. I was just doing it. Moving. Going. Catching up on something I didn’t even know I’d missed.
Looking back, the outdoors gave me something that I couldn’t find anywhere else after she died.
Quiet.
Not like legit silence quiet. But brain quiet. That place where you’re doing something just hard or scary enough that there’s no room left for anything else. When you’re trying to roll your kayak in a rapid so you don’t drown, or scrambling up something you probably shouldn’t be scrambling up, or dodging trees down the mountain at speed, there is genuinely no room left for anything else. Your brain has exactly one job, and grief is not on the list.
If you’re an outdoorsy person, you’ve definitely experienced this before: the oh-so-sought-after flow state.
I think grief does this thing where it makes the world feel very loud but also very far away at the same time. You’re super overwhelmed but also disconnected simultaneously, which is just such a fun combo. What I’ve found, over and over again, is that the mountains are one of those places that cut through both.
I’m not saying that like, hiking the PCT will cure your grief (I mean, it might, idk I haven’t had the chance to find out yet). But generally, grief doesn’t get cured. Everyone has those days where it just hits you like a train out of nowhere.
But there is definitely something real about doing hard things outside when you’re carrying something heavy. Choosing to show up somewhere that doesn’t care about you, or your feelings, and demands that you give it your everything. It’s sort of comforting. Being there and realizing how small you are.
All this to say, this is why I post what I post. When I first started getting into the outdoors I didn’t see someone who was like me. Someone who loved all the girly things and comfort city-life provides, but was soooo curious about what lies beyond the highway. Someone who just wanted to go for it, but didn’t have any idea where to start. I want to be that for someone.
So if you’re really in it right now, grief, or something else heavy that you’ve been dragging around. I hope you go outside and do something that scares you a little (or a lot). It won’t bring anyone back. But it might bring you back, even just a little.
Miss you mommy! You’d probably be soooo concerned if you heard about some of the things I get up to out there hehe ♡
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