Failure to Summit, or Dealing with Shame

In late autumn of 2018, mum called up one day and said that she wanted to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. It was on her bucket list, and if she didn’t do it soon, she feared that she wouldn’t be able to do so. As an added bonus, the trip would be mark my fifth anniversary of being diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer, and what better way to celebrate survival than climbing a really big mountain and telling cancer to fuck off.

Now might be a good time to mention that when mum made that call to me, she was 71, so she did have a point about it being “now or never.”

So, we made plans. Mum found a guide company, organized the trip, and I rustled up four other women that were willing to attempt this sort of thing. All told, we were six women: mum, four of us between 47-50, and one at 35. All were experienced travelers and adventurists. Mum and I had hiked at 15,000 feet in Peru, but this was by far our highest attempt on anything.

In early January of 2020, we departed for Tanzania. After a few days of acclimation to a drastically different time zone, we began our ascent. We had a day of rainforest, a day of up up up rolling grassland hills, a “rest” day with a scrabble to Zebra Rocks, and a day of austere, barren landscape that made me think of Mars. We camped in six-person huts, we drank as much water as we could stand, we ate more eggs than any of us wanted to, and we were ridiculously happy to see Western toilets in camps. We were happy out on the trail.

Day four took us to the base of Kilimanjaro. As we slogged up that long hill to the Kibo huts, the last stop before Kilimanjaro itself, my nose started to bleed. I was cold and getting colder, and by dinner that evening, my extremities began to shut down. The nausea I felt was overwhelming, and I simply could not get warm. After tea, I made a decision, a hard, awful decision: I would not attempt to summit with the others the next day. I felt too wretched, and I feared that things were only going to get worse for me, not better. I had the legs for the climb, but not the ability to withstand Kibo’s 15,500-foot elevation. If I was unwell at this elevation, there was no way that I was going to be able to summit Kilimanjaro’s 19,000 feet without putting myself and others in danger.

That evening, as everyone did last-minute gear checks and set clothing out, I cocooned myself into my sleeping bag, turned my face to the wall, and cried. I like to think that no one else noticed, but I have no doubt that they did and were just being kind by giving me some space. We all knew how hard we had worked to get to that point (don’t even ask me how many lunges and how much core work I did), and there is nothing to be done to assuage that kind of grief other than cry it out. Those were bitter, salty tears, and right then, they tasted of failure, of shame.

Of our six-person group, three did summit. Others ran into the same altitude issues that I did, just a bit later than me. One of those that summited was my mum. I am proud beyond anything of them, but especially her. She worked so hard to get ready for this trip, did hard time in the gym and began hiking up at the local ski hill, much to her dog’s delight. In her 70s, she is in better shape than women half her age.

At the heart of this post, however is shame. I am ashamed that I didn’t reach the top. Others were able to do so, but why not me? Heck, I was even the one with a personal vendatta, a reason for getting up there. What about me wasn’t enough to get up there? I don’t have an answer to this, other than cemented knowledge that my body does not like high altitudes. But, like any good coach, I’m asking myself what was the lesson I needed to learn from Kilimanjaro. Here are a few takeaways:

• Did I make the right decision? Without a doubt. What is more, I made a call that kept others safe, supported others’ attempts to summit. Just because it was the right decision doesn’t make this particular pill any less bitter to swallow, but I do hope that should I find myself in similar circumstances in the future, I’d again make this same decision.

• “Delete the number, accept the lesson, and move on.” I found this meme in my Instagram feed this morning, and with some tweaking, it works here. I’ve changed it to, “Accept the lesson, find the joy, and move on.” I may not have summited, but I brushed my teeth above the clouds. I saw some amazing country. I hauled out my rusty Mongolian language skills when we bumped into Mongolians. And my relationships with some of my favorite people are stronger than ever.

• Cancer can fuck off from anywhere, not just the top of a mountain. Every day that I live well, give more than I receive, love unconditionally, that is where the real victory is. Besides, life is too short too wallow in anything, but especially shame. Perhaps it is shame that I need to tell to fuck off as well.

And with that, I’m off to drive to Colorado to pick up our dogs. Our house is too quiet, too clean, and I miss having them underfoot.