A girlfriend in Ft. Worth paid $25 in shipping fees to send me a box of rocks for Christmas. Seriously.
But these were special rocks: stacked on top of one another, they formed three symbolic cairns. Granted, they were purchased cairns, likely from some pricey boutique in Dallas, but cairns nonetheless.
Like anyone who hikes on occasion, I’ve come across a few cairns in my time. Nothing quite compares, however, to the cairns I saw while hiking the Samaria Gorge on Greece’s island of Crete – said to be Europe’s longest gorge. Mid-way through the day-long hike, I came across a bend in the trail where 100s of cairns had been built by fellow hikers. It was a stunning, Alice In Wonderland-type scene. (For a picture of a cairn, see the rocks stacked on top of one another at the top of your screen in the page banner behind “The Sabbatical Mindset”).
The Samaria Gorge.
Lisa, my Ft. Worth girlfriend, had been diagnosed with stage 3 rectal cancer two months prior to my hiking Samaria. She was 39 years old and had four young boys. Rectal cancer? Really? I was scared for her and her family’s future.
Staring at all those cairns, I thought of Lisa and wondered what she was feeling at that very moment, on the other side of the globe. I had struggled with feeling helpless during her illness – not living in the same state meant I couldn’t be there for her like her Ft. Worth friends. I built a cairn in her honor and snapped a picture with my phone, which I emailed to Lisa later that evening.
She didn’t know what it was. I told her to look “cairn” up, and she did.
Our text messages went like this:
“You built a memorial for my burial site?”
“What?? NO. Why are you saying that?”
“Wikipedia says they’re built to memorialize the dead.”
Shit. Lisa isn’t a hiker. I’m not even sure she likes being outside much. I should have known.
“Cairns are built by hikers to help one another find the way. It is a sign of hope and guidance. It is my way of helping you find the way out of this dark time.”
The year ahead for Lisa would indeed be dark. Her treatment at MD Anderson in Houston included radiation, surgery, and chemotherapy. Friends and family gathered around to offer care for Lisa’s boys, food for the family, errand-running, etc. From afar, I tried to offer strength and hope, while feeling utterly useless and in fear of losing her. Truth is, Lisa had long been the one to show me the way through life.
We’d met in college. She attended Belmont University in Nashville, and I went to Vanderbilt University a few blocks away. Backstage of a Miss Tennessee Pageant, one of us offered help to the other in spraying our rear ends with Firm Grip, the football spray used by pageant contestants to keep their swimsuit firmly planted on their bottoms before traipsing on stage in four-inch heels. At roughly 5′2″, we were the shortest two contestants there. She quickly became my best friend.
The following summer, I was her maid of honor. And then our lives took different turns – she, married to a soon-to-be physician and mother of 1-2-3-4 boys, and me, (still) single and always searching for the next adventure. I watched carefully as her life became increasingly full and took mental notes on how to do what I might someday do, too. Hands down, she’s the best mother I’ve ever witnessed. Her boys are smart, respectful, curious, kind, and disciplined.
Shelves in my office display Lisa's cairns.
There was a note with my box of rocks: I hope every time you look at these you will remember the thoughts you had for me when you stacked some in my honor. They remind me of where I have been and the people like you who marked my path with light and hope. I love you sweet friend.
Lisa is now in remission. She’ll be checked every three months and will likely fight the fear of cancer’s return. Who wouldn’t? Admittedly, she is not the same person she was before cancer. She’s been transformed, although exactly how so will likely be a discovery process for her.
The cairns on my office shelves signify a gift Lisa gave me before the rocks in a box showed up on my doorstep . . . a gift, I suspect, Lisa gave so many people . . . the loving reminder of what’s been given to us all: life.
- Priceless rocks from a precious friend.
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It’s actually quite a thing to behold. I came across hundreds of rock cairns while exploring the island of Aruba about ten years ago. And though a clearly marked dirt road snaked its way through these makeshift spires, I couldn’t help but add a couple geological novenae myself to this alien landscape. Cairns, like sabbaticals, are guideposts that can mark the significant change, or honor and memorialize the spirit of one’s life and/or the life of someone else.
When living in Los Angeles, I took it upon myself to take one long weekend per month for an entire year (mini-sabbaticals, if you will) to get out of Los Angeles and rejuvenate my spirit.
On one such trip to the Mecca Hills Wilderness area, I hiked 10-15 miles in every direction, every day, and did not see one person the entire trip. There were signs of life and hope however, found in cairns along the way. Although I was specifically seeking this solitude, the cairns were symbols of those who’d successfully traveled these same hills before me, guiding and supporting me along my spiritual journey.
Later, so moved by that experience, I took a small group from my church back to those same hills and slot canyons on Good Friday and we shared an Easter season spiritual retreat together.
May we all have the courage to leave cairns along the way to mark our experiences and be open and humble enough to use the ones left by others who’ve tread these paths before.
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