At Stephanie's wake, her father said something
that's stuck with me ever since. "She was always so adventurous," he said. I'm not sure I'd ever
used that word to describe her while she was alive, but it's exactly the right
word.
But Stephanie was adventurous, long before she
met me.
Like a lot of teenaged girls, she had worked as a
baby-sitter in high school, and somehow, when she was barely 18, she parlayed
that experience into a summer job as a nanny. She worked and lived with a
married couple and their kids in New England, several states away from anyone
she knew. And you know what? She was great at being a nanny. Every time she
mentioned it, she said that she'd loved the work and loved the kids, but that
the most important thing she'd learned as a nanny was that she didn't want to
be a mother.
She went to Russia before I knew her, shortly after the
collapse of the USSR, and while she was there she was not-quite-arrested but
very much "detained" for questioning. Russian subway stations are
marvelously ornate, more like an old-time movie palace than an American subway
station, and Steph thought one of the stations in St Petersburg was
particularly photo-worthy, so – click-click. A Russian soldier or cop appeared,
and she was taken to an interrogation room where the authorities spent an hour peppering
her with the same questions over and over again: Why are you taking pictures?
Why is an American in Russia taking pictures in the subway? What is the purpose
of taking pictures in the subway? Steph being Steph, she kept her cool under
the pressure, and eventually they confiscated her roll of film, but let her
leave with a stern warning to be mindful of where she was taking photos.
When we became a couple, she already had a computer and some
internet savvy – so she was ahead of the curve, for the mid-1990s. Adventurous,
in other words. To be sure, I'd had no interest in computers or the net before
she showed me the basics.
On a philosophical level, Stephanie didn't share what seems
to be most Americans' fear of the different — the gays, the Muslims, the
Mexicans, the terrorists, in old days the communists, and whatever we're
supposed to be fearful of this week. She thought Americans were tough enough to
stand up to any real danger, and that the imagined dangers were mostly just
silly.
"Put a bunch of white Baptists in the same room, and
it'll probably be peaceful — but boring. Bring a bunch of people together from
different places, with a lot of different backgrounds and religions and
characteristics, and you have America. There might be an argument, but it'll be
interesting."
She always wanted to do something new, every weekend.
Anything that she'd never done before was given special consideration. Maybe a
restaurant we'd never been to, a taste of some new cuisine she'd never tried. I
wouldn't know what Korean food tasted like, or Vietnamese, or Cajun, or
Japanese, or good barbeque or Chinese food, if not for Steph.
Or, she often wanted to take a drive to some place we'd
never been. I can't count the number of enjoyable afternoons and overnights we
had, in places I never would've gone without her.
I don't remember the details of how we did it,
or why we did it, but in San Francisco we forged press passes naming us
as reporters, and the passes worked – we gained free
access to a big software convention at Mosconi Center. We spent a couple of
hours surrounded by high-tech people, and interviewed two of them, but I'm
pretty sure we didn't print anything about any of this in our zine.
Even after she was in a wheelchair, Stephanie was still
adventurous. She beat the heck out of that chair-on-wheels, and took it through
sleet and snow and mud. We went places and did things while she was in the
chair — not always the same things we'd done before the amputation, but
"an adventure as often as possible" was always the rule. And she
loved it when I would push her chair super-speedy. I remember an afternoon at
the Milwaukee Zoo, when I ran down a slight hill as fast as I could, pushing
her wheelchair, while she hollered happily and held her hands in the air like a
kid on a rollercoaster. I'm pretty sure she was wearing her Wonder Woman
t-shirt that day.
* * * * * * * * * *
When she was a kid, Stephanie's family went
camping just about every summer. My family did, too. She went fishing on those
family camping trips, and her mom or dad would clean and cook the fish she
caught. I went fishing as a kid, but never caught anything.
Steph told me that she'd brought books on her
family's camping trips, and I did, too, though she was probably reading better
books than mine. She was sometimes gently scolded by her parents for reading,
and so was I. "We're in the forest (or at the mountain, or next to the
lake, whatever) so what are you reading for? Put down the book and go hike or
swim, or play with your brother." Camping and reading, it seemed, were two
things you could do, but not at the same time.
Neither of us had ever been camping or fishing
as adults, but when we compared our childhood memories, we
decided that we wanted to go camping, and Stephanie wanted to go fishing. So
circa 2006 or 2007, we started buying equipment – sleeping bags, a tiny tent, a
fishing pole for Stephanie, and eventually some camping cookware and a larger
tent. Fishing and camping became our new hobbies, though we never went fishing
when we were camping. Fishing was an afternoon at Tenney Park, inside Madison's
city limits; camping was a long drive to a state park, and an overnight stay
among the mosquitoes and chiggers.
When she went fishing I tagged along, just
reading a book in the sunshine or shade. Fishing held no fascination for me,
but an afternoon in the park with Steph was always delightful. She was a good
fisherlady; only once did she fail to catch a fish, and most times she caught
several. Only once, though, did she catch the stereotypical fish from a day
gone fishing — something with serious meat on its bones. The other fish she
caught were all what I'd call aquarium fish — hand-sized and flat, with more
fins than meat.
All the fish Steph caught were released back
into the lake, even that one fish that looked like a good dinner. Food wasn't
really the point of our fishing days. To some extent, she didn't want the mess
and the stink of gutting a fish. Or, as she explained a few times before gently
plopping a fish back into the water, she wanted to give the fish another
chance. Or she discreetly pointed at a woman fishing across the water, or at
some middle-aged guy in the distance with two scruffy-looking kids and three
poles, and she said, "We have plenty to eat in our kitchen, but those
people look like they're fishing for food. They need it more than we do."
* * * * * * * * * *
When we went camping, it was usually a blast.
We'd pitch our tent for one night or two, battle many mosquitoes to the death,
and read a lot and hike a little. Or hike a lot — sometimes we walked for miles
— but with no-one to scold us or tell us we couldn't, we also read. A lot.
Inside our tent, we devoured newspapers, magazines, and books, all by the light
of our battery-powered lanterns. Perhaps there are expert campers who would say
that's nuts; we'd just say, the hikes and cookouts and scenery were nice, but
reading was our favorite part of every camping adventure.
There's a learning curve to camping, and we were
dummies at first but got better at it. Still, even on our first camping
adventure we had fun. We pitched the tent, took a long hike, then ate pork and
beans from a can and roasted weenies over the fire. Then we turned in, and I
snored so long and loud in our tiny tent, Stephanie finally asked me to sleep
in the car so she could catch some ZZZs.
That's not an unreasonable request, but I had
the bright idea of sleeping in the campsite instead of in the car. I was bitten
all over by ‘squeters and bugs until, in the middle of a black, moonless night,
I was startled awake by something big and furry brushing against my leg. Can't
say whether it was an enormous raccoon or a tiny bear, but whatever it was, I
neither moved nor made a sound until it had wandered off into the darkness. And
then I slept in the car, with the doors locked.
For food, we packed a loaf of bread and some
weenies and marshmallows for our first outing, but soon we were making hobo
stew in tin foil, and frying sausages in a pan over the fire. Always the master
chef, Steph was soon bringing spices and couscous and preparing fairly
elaborate meals that rivaled the fine cuisine she'd create at home.
We stayed at perhaps a dozen different
campgrounds, all in Wisconsin, some with plumbing and some with pits, and when
planning our trips I always suggested places with plumbing. Pits stink and can
seem unfriendly, especially at night. Steph, though, actually preferred the
pits. "We're not really roughing it," she said, "if we're using
flush-toilets."
On one camping trip, Steph's parents joined us
for dinner, but they said their camping days were over so after eating they
drove to a hotel. That was the same weekend, I think, when the mosquitoes were
so numerous, so fierce, so hungry that we gave up at around midnight, packed
the tent and came home.
It took both of us, though, to pitch or un-pitch
the tent, so when Steph started having trouble walking, the camping trips soon
became a memory. The tents and sleeping bags were among the leftovers I gave to
Goodwill after Stephanie's death.
* * * * * * * * * *
We were fat folks, no doubt about that, but before she lost her leg and her health, Stephanie loved a
long walk. She always wanted to go off the beaten path, literally. It was her
idea, on one hike, to climb over a stone wall and see what was on the other
side. When we were at a park that had a view tower, Steph always wanted to
climb it, and always beat me to the top. Many times, our hikes took us to
spectacular vistas, in a meadow or a forest, or to a cliff overlooking
everything on Earth. And once, her urge for adventure may have put our lives in
peril. Sure felt like it at the time, but I'll let you decide.
We were at Devil's Lake State Park, in
Wisconsin. The trail was rather inadequately marked with signs, and it seemed a
little steeper than we'd expected at first, but then it leveled out and we
continued following the signs … and then the upward slope grew again, slowly
enough that we thought we'd soon be on flat land, but instead we found
ourselves going upper and upper, and then climbing steps carved into the
hillside.
It took a crazy long time, perhaps half an hour,
perhaps longer, before we understood that we were climbing a mountain. We had
expected an ordinary hike on a scenic trail twisting around the base of the
mountain, but no, the base of the mountain was far below. The trail wasn't
vertical and we weren't cliffhanging, but we were going up at quite an angle.
We talked about turning back, but Stephanie wanted to reach the peak, and it
seemed we were almost there, so we soldiered on. Well, we weren't as close to
the peak as we'd thought.
In retrospect, it might have been among the
stupidest things we ever did together. When we finally reached the peak that we
hadn't meant to climb, we were too exhausted to enjoy the view, and we were
honestly frightened at the thought of going down the long, steep trail we'd
just climbed. We'd used up all our strength and gumption. We were way, way out
of our depth, or height. The height, by the way, is 500 feet for the East Bluff
at Devil's Lake, or so says Wikipedia. That's the equivalent of a 35- or
40-story building, but without elevators.
"We could wait until someone else reaches
the peak, and ask them to call 9-1-1," I suggested, as Steph and I didn't
have cell phones yet. "Park rangers would come and carry us down, or maybe
they'd send a helicopter."
Steph said no. "First off, they'd probably
bill us for the expense, and anyway, with a little rest we could make our way
down. I think." Worried and exhausted, we rested for half an hour, maybe
longer, at the top of the bluff. Our one advantage was that we'd started early,
so we still had plenty of daylight. But scariest of all, Stephanie was getting
the woobles — our word for the diabetes-related dizziness and disorientation
she felt when her blood sugars fell too low. We needed to get her blood sugars
up, and soon.
Steph had been through the woobles plenty of
times, but usually she'd just drink some sugary juice, or eat a candy bar or
something, and she'd feel better in a few minutes. When we were away from home,
one or both of us would have a juice pack or a sweet and sugary snack in a back
pocket, for just such an emergency — but on this particular day, we'd both
forgotten. Like I said, we'd thought we were going for a short walk, not
climbing a mountain.
"Really, love," I said. "We
should ask someone to call for a rescue team."
"We're not doing that," she said in
her stubborn voice, meaning the decision was final.
Very, very slowly, we proceeded down the way
we'd come up. Weak, exhausted, our footing not too stable and Steph with the
woobles, we spent a great deal of time making little progress down the steep
trail on the side of a mountain. We were both terrified, honestly. At the rate
we were descending, it could be a long time before we reached the bottom — far
longer than Steph had ever gone with the woobles making her light-headed.
A couple of upbound hikers were approaching us
on the narrow trail, and I said, "We could ask these people for a snack,
or for help getting down."
"No," Steph said. "That would be
embarrassing. Please don't say anything to them."
"Steph, please."
"Doug, I know you're worried. I'm worried
too. But I can do this. So please, don't say anything to these people."
As the other hikers came near, we nodded at
them, they nodded at us, and they continued up the bluff never knowing we were
scared witless. I don't know whether that was smart or stupid, but Steph was
more stubborn than me, and more intelligent, so I told myself that she was
right. She could do this.
We continued down the trail, slowly, and
whatever you're envisioning 'slowly' means, we went slower than that. We
stopped several times, wherever we could find a place to lean or sit. I held
her hand when it was safe to do so, but there were parts of the path where we
each needed both hands free, just to keep our precarious balance.
I wasn't wearing a watch, but I'd guess we spent
two hours climbing the bluff, half an hour at the top, and two hours
descending. When we reached the bottom, it was another five or ten minutes to
the parking lot, but by this time Steph was so dizzy she was having a hard time
walking, even on flat earth. We found a big rock where she could sit
comfortably, and I ran ahead to the parking lot.
In the back seat of our car was an ice chest
with juice in it, and I brought the juice back to Steph. She guzzled it,
started feeling better, but stayed sitting for a while to be safe. Then we
walked to the car, still slowly but with restored stability. Our legs ached for
days. I felt like a fool, and Steph said she did, too. And for as long as she
had diabetes, never again did we go anywhere without snacks in a purse, pocket,
or backpack.