Month: August 2026

My mortality seems like something closer to me these days as more people I know have passed into their next great adventure. A Facebook post just came through about another death in my high school graduating class—almost 30% gone now.

I marvel at how the years flew by and enabled me to reach this vulnerable, and hopefully venerable, age. I am not obsessed with what the future might hold, but I am thinking about getting my affairs in order so that my demise is easier for others to handle.

I am thinking about where my physical body will rest when my soul passes. I want to be cremated, and the ashes settled in locations that are most meaningful to me. My parents are an example with their desire to have a granite marker in the cemetery near their home. They also wanted part of their co-mingled ashes scattered over the family farm. I have been thinking about special sites in my life.

I would like a small headstone near my parents with some ashes buried there. I lived in Coggon, Iowa for the formative years of my life. I recognize more acutely each day how profound my parents were in shaping the values that I hold dear. A statement on that headstone in addition to my name and birth/death dates might be, “She loved the cornfields and the Ponderosa Pines.”

My Iowa roots are attached strongly to the influence on my life of the youth organization 4-H. I had long wanted some ashes spread at the 4-H Camping Center, which unfortunately no longer exists. I am still considering how I might honor that Midwestern past along with what I learned about raising sheep and being a somewhat competent homemaker.

The pines epitomize the most important “place” for me in the Rocky Mountains and specifically Rocky Mountain National Park. I speak with people frequently about securing permits to scatter ashes in the park. I recognize how meaningful this landscape is to thousands of individuals who have visited and inhabited this area for years.

Scattering my ashes in the park means choosing a specific place. Special to me is Twin Sisters Mountain. It was the first mountain I hiked in the park over a half century ago. In the ensuing years, I have relished that hike dozens of times. The views from the top are to the continental divide and Longs Peak in the west and the front range and plains to the east. This vista represents my love for open spaces that includes mountains as well as prairies.

I hope that I have friends or family members willing and able to make the hike to the top of Twin Sisters. If not, I would be happy to have the ashes scattered at Sheep Lakes where I have mixed my love for mountain landscapes with sheep of all kinds including the domestic ones I raised in 4-H as well as the Bighorns.

I enjoy my musings about where I will rest in peace. In the meantime, I appreciate these special spaces while I am still alive.

Experts have written volumes about retirement. Some of the advice relates to what to do in pre-retirement. Other recommendations concern adjusting to retirement and living with new opportunities as well as losses.

I read a recent article that described three stages of retirement that I personally interpreted as “getting down, slowing down, and winding down.” The more I thought about it, the more it seemed those phases could be metaphoric for galloping, trotting, and walking. Regardless of the label, I believe I am at the beginning of the second stage of slowing down, or trotting.

I retired from higher education at the traditional age of 65. I felt professionally I was still near the top of my game. However, I also knew that I had been studying leisure all my life and while I still had the energy, I wanted to experience it. I enjoyed the 27 years I lived in North Carolina, but John Muir had been speaking in my head for years: “The mountains are calling and I must go.” I was privileged to retire for a relatively minimalist lifestyle in the mountains.

The past 12 years have been filled with activity—getting down (galloping) with volunteering, hiking, and travelling. I have kept busy as has been my approach to life since I was a kid. I am beginning to feel, however, that slowing down has appeal by design as well as circumstances.

I do not have as much energy as I had in the past. Having a day with little planned is a luxury that I have not often allowed myself.  I am also feeling the aches and pains in joints and muscles more than in the past. I know that “motion is the best lotion” and I will continue to be active, but at a slower pace.

This change to a new mindset about my life is challenging. By slowing a bit, however, I hope to head off the last phase of decline for many more years.

I can reflect now on my mother, particularly, as she lived through these stages. I am a lot like her and hope that I have the same dignity as she did, especially when declining health resulted in her life being far more sedentary than she wanted. Change is not easy. I recognize its inevitability. Understanding change and facing reality does not mean I give up. Nevertheless, I am striving to be more patient with myself as I trot through life.

The sky was a bluebird color contrasted with the patchwork green/brown tundra. It was Monday morning during my bi-weekly volunteer shift as a Tundra Guardian. The tundra is the “land above the trees” that occupies over 1/3 of Rocky Mountain National Park. It is always beautiful but with sunshine, a light wind, and colorful flowers, it was especially lovely.

My tundra partner and I parked the car in the lot and strolled toward the 11,716-foot Forest Canyon Overlook where we often spent time chatting with visitors. Many days we saw marmots and pika on the rocks surrounding the designated overlook area. On this early July day, wildflowers were abundant including Old Man Mountain, Avens, and Sky Pilot, to mention only a few. The slight breeze was welcome as we made our way along the paved asphalt path to the end of the short trail.

When we pulled into the lot, I noticed a solo middle-aged woman getting out of a green Subaru with a Colorado license plate. I nodded to her as she stepped spritely ahead of us on the path.

We usually stand in the observation area and chat with visitors, point out any animals or flowers we see, and offer to take photos if desired. I said to the woman I had earlier acknowledged in the parking lot, “It’s an amazing day, isn’t it?” She smiled.

I chatted with several folks and then noticed that same woman holding back, apparently wanting to ask a question of us as many folks did. She walked up to me and said, “Yes, it is truly an amazing day. Let me tell you why. Six weeks ago, I was in the hospital with pneumonia and sepsis. I asked my doctor if I was going to be able to do my annual trip to Rocky Mountain National Park. He told me maybe, but only if my blood oxygen level was high enough. Today it was 92 and here I am at this elevation in this beautiful park. It is truly an amazing day.”

My eyes lit up and I was delighted to hear her story. I said “Wow, that’s great” as she turned and walked away.

I was humbled that she had shared her story with me. I looked around at the dozen other visitors at the overlook. Everyone has a story and I wish I knew more of them. Some narratives may be routine while others are profound. An amazing day includes many stories.