Left for Dead (33 page)

I’m pleased to report that I didn’t kill as many brain cells on Everest as I feared. When I finally returned to my pathology practice, I made sure that everything I did was double-checked by one of my partners. It was sort of a long probation and apprenticeship to see if I still had it. Luckily, I did.

My key tools, my eyes and my brain, were working as well as ever. Foot pedals and voice controls partially compensate for my missing hands. The really detailed hand work, of which no machine is yet capable, is now done by my assistant, Kim Ledford.

The spiritual and emotional aftermath of Everest naturally is a far more complex question.

Many individuals have asked me how the Everest experience changed my perception of the spiritual, and did I pray on the mountain?

I was raised in a religious household, but as a young man I drifted away from spirituality, more out of apathy than any revolt
or rejection of dogma. I felt that in old age I could return to these philosophical questions. Then I learned you can get pretty old, pretty fast.

I used to say that no, I didn’t pray on the mountain. I was too busy trying to stay alive. Upon reflection, however, that answer was a shade literal. It conceived of prayer as a unity: a preamble, a stirring body of text and a close, preferably delivered from one’s knees.

But if prayer isn’t just words, but instead that thing you believe with all your heart at the core of your being, then I surely did pray. On Everest, more than any other time in my life, I had a sense of what was important to me, what I truly cherished.

I also was immensely comforted by all the people throughout the United States and the world who prayed for me and for my family. I learned again the power of prayer for those who offer it, and, certainly, those for whom it is offered.

I learned that miracles do occur. In fact, I think they occur pretty commonly.

I also now understand that humans are the toughest creatures on Earth. There’s a reason we’re at the top of the food chain, and it is not simply because we’re a smarter cockroach. There’s drive, determination and strength within each of us.

Most of us never have to tap into those resources. We live pretty easy lives, in contrast to the pioneers who settled the wilderness and explored far places. We may look back in awe at their strength and toughness, but they were no stronger or tougher than we. They simply had to live that life.

If you’re going to come through an ordeal such as mine, you need an anchor. It may be your friends. It may be your colleagues.
It may be your God. Or it may be, as it is for me, my family.

As spiritual matters go, I’m still very much a work in progress. Yet I have learned some things from this experience. It is impossible to go to Everest without being touched by the Buddhist Sherpas and their spirituality. Each morning you hear them offering their prayer chants for safety on the mountain. As you lie in the dark in your warm sleeping bag, the air is filled with the smell of burning juniper from their altar.

These are people who live their religion; it is part of their every motion. They don’t just practice on Sunday morning and Wednesday night, but each hour of each day. If a religion is to have any meaning for me, it must not exclude such spirituality. It must encompass Hindus, Buddhists and Jews and Muslims and Christians and any other faith that shares my core values.

I think what truly matters in faith is not what you profess, but whether you live your faith’s tenets. Ever the practical individual, if at the end of my days I discover there is no God, only the Void, I will feel I have lost nothing. Rather, by trying to be a better person—even if I commonly fail—I will have gained.

One source of strength in that daily battle is humor. Shortly after I was put back together, I was on a plane standing near a young woman struggling to place her baggage in the overhead. She glanced at me and asked if I’d be willing to lend her a hand.

Be still my heart! I was almost speechless with possible replies. Do I say, “I’m a little short at the moment?” Or “I gave at the office?” Or do you do as I did, say, “I don’t really know how to respond. I’m simply stumped”?

As I began speaking before audiences about what occurred on the mountain, and how it has affected my life, I realized I get as much out of the experience as they do. You don’t turn a fifty-something-year-old freight train around in a moment, even with an epiphany as profound as mine. Yet by telling the story, I remind myself of what is important to me. It gives me perspective that is so hard to achieve.

The other most common thing people ask me is whether I’d do it again. At first I’d think, What a stupid question! But as I considered at length, I realized that this is one of the deeper questions to be asked. The answer is: Even if I knew exactly everything that was going to happen to me on Mount Everest, I would do it again. That day on the mountain I traded my hands for my family and for my future. It is a bargain I readily accept.

For the first time in my life I have peace. I no longer seek to define myself externally, through goals and achievements and material posessions. For the first time in my life, I’m comfortable inside my own skin. I searched all over the world for that which would fulfill me, and all along it was in my own backyard.

All in all, I’m a blessed individual. Even better, I know it.

Beck and I deal with each other on several different levels. The old Beck-and-Peach relationship is gone, but I don’t yet know what will replace it. What do I believe? Do I open myself up to be hurt again?

While Beck was in the hospital a nurse approached him. She
said she was worried about her husband, who was climbing a peak in Colorado.

Beck said, “The view from the top is so good!”

I told him, “You don’t say that in front of me. I’m done with mountains. I’ve donated. I gave at home.”

In the summer of 1997, we got a letter about breast cancer survivors climbing in Antarctica, asking whether we’d like to contribute to their effort. One of my friends said, “You should write back and say I’ve already done my part—two hands and a part of a life.”

Today, I do not consider my relationship with Beck to be fragile. Nor do I worry now that my anger might snowball or explode. I think my anger has turned to sadness for all that never was. Not for Beck and me so much as the fact that Beck missed watching his kids grow up. He lost his hands, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

I was annoyed that Dad was not around. I was upset. I guess lonely is a good word. But now that I’m older, I don’t begrudge him the obsession. I understand what he did, and I forgive him. People get wrapped up in things like that and they don’t realize what they are doing is wrong. Dad didn’t until he got slapped in the face.

I really admire my father’s perseverance and determination, and his sense of humor. As I’ve gotten older, we also have had more and more common threads to share, like dirty jokes and R-rated movies.

Now he’s become a man of the moment. He knows that when you love someone you should tell them because you don’t know about the future. He’s become a goofy Dad figure.

“You know what, son? I really love you!”

“Sure, Dad. I’ll be home by midnight.”

Beck’s just a very fine person. He cares about people—however inadequately he expresses it. He’s been wounded in his personal life, but he’s still an acute observer. He translates that into humor.

Whatever the difficulties, there’s great love there. They said Madan had a brave heart. Well, Beck has a great heart. And Peach is very brave in her way, too.

She didn’t kill him.

When I first returned from Everest, there was a great deal of interest in having a book written from both Peach’s and my points of view. In the early months following the tragedy on the mountain, such an undertaking clearly was premature. The emotional and physical pain needed to be confronted step by step, rather than in one cathartic leap. More than that, however, I had no idea how the story would end.

As the months passed, my interest in writing the story of the mountain actually diminished, as I felt the accounts by Jon Krakauer
(Into Thin Air)
and David Breashears
(High Exposure)
provided definitive documentation.

However, as I realized my life was coming back together, and my relationship with my wife was on the mend, my thoughts turned once again to the book project.

While the story of what occurred during those few days on Everest clearly is of interest, the story of what happened when I got back home and had to rebuild my life—redefine who I was—became
the
story for me.

There’s no easy recipe for coming through hard times, but it is reassuring to know that even in the bleakest of moments, hope remains. Out of adversity, good things do happen.

It would be difficult to adequately thank the large number of individuals who have helped me struggle through, and hold on to body and soul. I wish to begin by thanking Peach, Beck II and Meg for loving me and staying with me and allowing me to change. And my parents, whose love has been constant. They raised their boys as best they knew how. Thanks to my brothers, Kit, and especially to Dan, who journeyed fast and far to be there when I needed him most.

To the many heroes of my story: David Breashears, Robert Schauer, Ed Viesturs, Pete Athans and Todd Burleson, who put their lives on the line for mine. And especially to Colonel Madan K.C., whose brave heart still astounds me.

To our guides on Everest: Rob Hall, Mike Groom and Andy Harris, who embodied the professionalism, character and sacrifice of mountain guides throughout the world.

To my team members: Doug Hansen, Yasuko Namba, Stuart Hutchison, Frank Fischbeck, Lou Kasischke, John Taske and Jon Krakauer—I treasure the friendships.

To the Sherpas who make all of this possible through their hard work and bravery: Ang Tshering Sherpa, Ang Dorje Sherpa, Lhakpa Chhiri Sherpa, Kami Sherpa, Tenzing Sherpa, Arita Sherpa, Ngawang Norbu Sherpa, Chuldum Sherpa, Chhongba Sherpa, Pemba Sherpa and Tendi Sherpa.

Also part of our team: Helen Wilton, who made us all wash our hands and kept us healthy, with the able assistance of Dr. Caroline Mackenzie, our Base Camp doctor.

To Senators Kay Bailey Hutchison and Tom Daschle, as well as Ambassador Sandra Vofelgesang, David Schensted and Inu K.C.

I would also thank the physicians, nurses and therapists who worked so long and hard to put me back together: Dr. Greg Anigian, Dr. Mike Doyle, Dr. Joe Sample, Dr. James Brodsky and Dr. Alan Farrow-Gillespie, as well as the physicians who assisted me on the mountain: Dr. Ken Kamler and Dr. Henrik Hansen.

I’m extremely grateful to my partners, Dr. John Esber, Dr. Charles Cramer and Dr. Wayne Taylor, for allowing me the privilege of returning to work with them, and supporting me and my family in the months before I was able to resume my duties.

Thank you, as well, to members of the Inner Circle, who were there through all the darkest days, and the Research Council: our friends Jim and Marianne Ketchersid, Terry and Pat White, and Jon and Sally Esber.

To Dan Lewis and his boys, as well as Deena Killingsworth and Jonnie Rohrer for their expert help with the press.

Thanks to Ken Zornes for coming by every Sunday morning with a box of doughnuts that helped me regain those thirty pounds of lost weight that Brent Blackmore helped me gain. And thanks to Cappy and Janie McGarr, my favorite Democrats.

And to the north Dallas power moms who fought like tigers to bring me home: Mary Ann Bristow, Cecilia Boone, Linda Gravelle, Victoria Bryhan, Maude Cejudo, Bobbie Long, Vickey Thumlert, Mary Ellen Malone, Ann Abernathy, Caroline Allen, Pat White, Yolanda Brooks, Liz Zornes, Jean Sudderth, Marcela
Gerber, Lisa Camp, Sue Washington, Sandra Barr, Barbara Lynn and Carolyn Kobey.

My appreciation to the many thousands of individuals who held us in their thoughts and prayers. This was a far greater comfort than you can ever know.

Finally, to Howard Olson, for all the love and inspiration he has given us, and for fostering that second, and perhaps greater miracle.

Copyright © 2000 by S. Beck Weathers

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Villard Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

Villard Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Except where otherwise credited, photographs appearing in this book are snapshots from the personal collection of the author. The frontispiece photograph is © J. Allen Hansley.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Weathers, Beck.
   Left for dead: my journey home from Everest/Beck Weathers with
Stephen G. Michaud
     p.    cm.
   eISBN: 978-0-375-50588-1
    1. Weathers, Beck. 2. Mountaineers—United
States—Biography. 3. Mountaineering—Everest, Mount (China and Nepal) I. Michaud, Stephen G., 1948–     II. Title.
GV199.92.W42 A3 2000      00-021503

Villard Books website address:
www.villard.com

v3.0