Hiking With Doctor K

Dr. K is a boyhood friend who lived up the street. My nerd friend, he was an unusual kid, introduced me to Beethoven, girls and scatological humor at about age 12. T.J.(short for 'Theodore James') and I we rode our ten speeds all over the neighborhood and hiked a few times as teens, he did well all through school and was so smart my brother dubbed him 'the walking encyclopedia.'



We lost touch after I ran off to Alaska and he began classes at the UW.,where T.J. Graduated with honors and a degree in organic chemistry. He got easily into Med School where he also impressed his teachers with quick assimilation and retention skills. After a three year residency in North Seattle, and now a full on Doctor, T.J. accepted a job offer in an Oregon medical clinic where he has been practicing internal medicine ever since.



About four years ago, after finding an ancient photo of the two of us sitting on a silly go-cart project, I wanted to send it to him so I googled him. He responded and we've been staying in touch ever since. Turns out, the old friendship, the boyish camaraderie was still the same and we've skied, we've attended car shows, we've also hiked a few times. Dr.K has been helpful and generous with his time whenever I have a medical question. He even came to visit my ailing father and my Aunt to offer on-site physicians perspective.



So when he texted me about helping him with a 'project', I said, 'Sure, what are we doing?' He got right to the point.



"I need help with my folks remains."



I was a little surprised, but not entirely since I knew his folks and had even helped him with the obituary when his dad, Joe, passed two years ago, so I let him continue.
"Both my folks, they're last request was to have their ashes scattered on Mt.Rainier."



"I'm coming up next Saturday, can you help me?"



Last month, T.J. texted me asking if I would like to fly to Dallas for the anniversary of JKFs assassination (he's a history buff) and last fall he asked me to come with him to climb Mt.Fuji. I declined politely on both offers, but a plea for help from an old friend is harder to dodge.



He arrived in town yesterday and texted that we were invited to dinner with him and his friend. I texted back that he was welcome to come straight to our house for dinner, as we had some fresh fish. Dr.K, as a single man, has demonstrated his preference for dating Japanese and Korean females and so again, I wasn't surprised when they arrived and out of his car stepped a pretty, dark-haired lady of Asian descent.



Doc K and 'Nanci' stayed for a nice meal and though her English was broken and hard to understand, her smile, laugh and pleasant nature made it easy to like her.
Before they left for their hotel room in town, Doc K pulled me aside and with uncharacteristic nervousness, he asked me how to handle the remains he had in his car trunk. I appreciated his trust and soon we were in my garage with two packages of human remains. He prattled and fussed, oddly, for a man ostensibly used to the unsavory aspects of human life and death, and so I asked him. "Doc, why the nervousness? You've seen plenty of this sort of thing, haven't you?"



"Well, yes, but not my own parents...it's weird, and..eww..there's a hole in the bag!"
Now we were laughing, like kids again, albeit with a task to complete. I grabbed a couple of pairs of latex gloves I use for working on my motorcycle, and a couple of medical masks my wife uses to mix herbs and offered T.J. a pair.



"Oh, ahh, naw, it's just minerals now, it's not really toxic."
I shook my head, but put my gear on as he brought out some Tupperware containers, a couple of small urns and a spoon.  I handed him my pocket knife and he worked at the zip tie on the bag while I spun open the small stainless steel urns.
"So, my plan is to take the bulk of Dad and Mom up to Eunice Lake...that's where we hiked together and that's where they wanted their ashes to be.."

I thought about what he said as I looked at the bulging 2 gallon bags of white powder on the garage bench. "Doc, that's a lot of material to pack up a hill....are you sure you don't wanna use it to maybe fertilize a tree on your ranch or something?"

"Oh, no...this is what they wanted," he repeated, "man, these bags are heavy! Will you help me carry them up there?"
Doc K is a serious mountaineer. He has summited three or more 4000 meter peaks in France and Switzerland and has climbed Mt.Hood and Mt.Rainier a number of times. He sends me the photos, him, helmeted and triumphant with ice axe over his head, the man has stamina. So I knew this request was more about my companionship as a sort of balm, a friend to soothe his nerves.

After he got the bags open, he stood and went silent. Not typical of him, I asked if he was alright. "Let's get Nanci...she's had a hard life....she's good at this sort of thing."
He went to the door and called her and she came out and quietly went about staging the urns and masking tape, she and Doc K carefully spooned a bit of each bag of ashes into the urns and Tupperware, leaving at least 15 lbs. of material in each bag.



With this T.J. seemed satisfied, thanking us both repeatedly. After Nanci went back in the house to say goodbye to my wife, Doc K told me, "Nanci emigrated from Vietnam just six years ago, nearly her whole family is gone, various reasons, she works in my clinic, medical imaging, never complains, real smart girl!"



All requirements that T.J. might resonate with since he is a high energy man who might be a challenge for most to put up with for any sort of extended period.

My early history with him is rife with summer days, on bikes or hikes in which he pushed us up long hills to near exhaustion, while also chattering nearly non-stop on topics of girls in school, war history or the superiority of German Composers. Over the course of more recent hikes with him, he has not changed.



Doctor K has a habit of ignoring direct questions if they are vexing, opting to just change the subject entirely, or, repeatedly asking "is that ok? Is that ok?"



It's a strange way to get answers to questions from him, so usually I just give up and go with the flow. In the process, if I just allow him to prattle, particularly while we walk somewhere, the things he says are very cogent and interesting, like a traveling lecture. For example, once on the trail to Eunice Lake, I asked him about an archaic term he had used while hiking together as kids, when he described how human internal organs were situated, he mentioned 'the duodenum'.



"The duodenum is at the uppermost end of the small intestine, the name's derived from the Latin 'intestinum duodenum digitalis' which means 12 fingers in width, which is the approximate length of the organ in humans, of which only Indians have them."



I recoiled, 'What!? Indians have different internal organs that the rest of us!? I was shocked and amazed, but the bastard never came clean that the last six words of his statement where complete fabrication. At the time, we were 12 years old, so I had to google it three years ago when the weird statement popped back into my memory. Yesterday, while trudging up the trail when I reminded him of this gag he had pulled in 1968, he laughed, "Good god, you'd believe nearly anything, wouldn't you!?"

The three of us huffed and puffed our way through the heat and roots and rocks, finally reaching the last push before Eunice Lake at about 90 minutes of hiking. At a water break near the top there, Nanci was a bit pallid and was sweating, I was holding on by surreptitiously resting for a few moments at each switchback, but Doc K looked fresh as a newborn.

"We're almost there!", he lied, "hey, do you want to eat lunch first or do the deed and then eat lunch or.." He talks non-stop, riddles his patter with questions and does not wait for the answers. I realize that he is manipulating us by trying to distract our attention from the heat fatigue. It's not a new idea, but it is frustrating. I stifle the urge to tell him to zip his trap, a lot.

He caps his Gatorade and begins the final slog and we follow like sweaty sheep.
Soon we round a corner and a cool breeze sweeps off of a ridge and there below it sits the emerald green lake. After a moments rest, we move closer to the lake proper and Doc K removes his pack and says "how about right here?"



It's a lovely place, glaciated stone under our boots slips into the lakes edge, alpine trees struggle through the poor, thin soil to point toward the grand peak behind us, and a huge bowl of collonaded rock cliffs surround the lake, and way up on top, a fire watch tower sits like a wooden cherry on Gods ice cream Sundae.



"Wait....what about there?" Doc K points to an escarpment with a nudge of scraggly pines about 40 yards distant. We pick up our packs and go there. "Oh...hey, wouldn't that be better yet, just a bit further, by that outcrop of basalt?"



I want to be recalcitrant, but cannot because this is not just hike with my old buddy, but a mission to grant a request, a last request, and that literally carries serious weight.

Finally, he stops in a circular grove of pines, a sheer cliff edge drops to an inlet of the lake on one side, a slide of rock eases down the other side to a copse of wild flowers and kinnickinnick and in a 360 degree spin, you can can see the fire tower, the pinnacle of Tolmie Peak, the incredibly magnetic, purple rocks of the flanks of Rainier that lead to the entire summit of Columbia Crest.

Doc and Nanci unpack the ashes and garden shovel, I pull out my envelope of poems and we begin the ceremony.

Doc K is silent again as he puts the scoop into the sack of ashes, he is holding it aloft, I have my camera on one hand and the printed poem by Walt Whitman in the other.

I raised my voice and as T.J. cast the first shovelful, I said,



"I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags."



Doc K scooped another scoop and held it out,



"I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.



You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,



Missing me one place? Search another.
I stop somewhere waiting for you."



The dust of Joseph K coated the underbrush and needles, it wafted in small gusts around the site, settling on rock, on shrubs and, to my dismay, on our backpacks and lunch containers. "Aaa...Doc?" I pointed at my backpack, white with Joe's cremains, and saw that T.J. Was grinning. He said nothing, but emptied the plastic bag of Joe and had Nanci hand him the sack containing his mother, Olive.



I moved my backpack to a location upwind, and we continued.



With a scoop full of Olive, Doctor K looked to me and I began a poem by John Magee called 'High Flight';



"Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, --and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of --Wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air..."



T.J. swept the scoop across the site and a cloud of white spread into the air above us.



"Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark or even eagle flew --
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God."



My voice quavered on the last two sentences, feeling the beauty of moment, and Kleikamp was still quieter than he'd been the whole trip. Nanci took over at Doc K's request and as she spread the rest of Olive's ashes, I read a final poem, author anonymous;



"They are not dead,
Who leave us this great heritage
Of remembered joy.



They still live in our hearts,
In the happiness we knew,
In the dreams we shared.



They still breathe,
In the lingering fragrance windblown,
From their favourite flowers.



They still smile in the moonlight's silver
And laugh in the sunlight's sparkling gold.



They still speak in the echoes of words
We've heard them say again and again.



They still move,
In the rhythm of waving grasses,
In the dance of the tossing branches.



They are not dead;
Their memory is warm in our hearts,
Comfort in our sorrow.



They are not apart from us,
But a part of us
For love is eternal,

And those we love shall be with us
Throughout all eternity."



Nanci was solid and completed the ceremony by folding up both bags and putting the scoop away, and the she stood and faced the mountain and held her hands folded against her chest, quietly mouthing additional prayers in Vietnamese.

Doctor K's joviality returned and he dusted off three small bottles of wine he had brought and we toasted Joseph and Opal, no finer people to ever grace the earth, the dust of their essence now co-mingled with the mountain, with the rocks and trees, with the wine and with our own essence. I took more photos of the site, of Doc K's dusted pants and boots, and we laughed at the largely unavoidable consequence of throwing human dust into a the sky over a windswept lake.

The rest of our hike up to the fire lookout and Tolmie Peak were less eventful after this ceremony, but I felt good about the closure for Doctor K, who had been waiting months and even years to conclude the task. He took GPS coordinates of the location and I photographed the handheld device so we could come back and visit, not only to honor his folks, who instilled a deep love of the Mountain in their son, but also just because the beauty of the place, with the lake below us, spires of granite above us and the magnificent Mountain all around, it's easily one of Nature's best cathedrals.