Understanding the Reason

In 2009, my world shifted. I found the person who completed my soul. I found the person who helped me see myself, for all my beauty and all my strength. The person who brought out my silly, made me do happy dances constantly, called me by pet names, and knew every curve of my body.

On March 18th, 2014 my world shifted once again. The love of my life, my beautiful and passionate husband, left his body to be with our Lord. He was on a 12 day kayaking adventure in Grand Canyon National Park with 9 of his close friends. He was found upside down, in calm water, and non responsive. No one knows what happened. He was here one moment and gone the next. Curt was a class 5 kayaker with skills and abilities that would impress us all. There is no reason why he wouldn’t pull his skirt and get out of his boat. The investigation found no contributing factor as to why he drowned and I believe that we will never know the reason while we are on this earth. So, what do you do with that information? How do you move forward with a question mark hung above your head? I’ll tell you how I am doing it, with faith and grace from God. Through this hard and unimaginable pain I have determined that the why, and the reasons, are bigger than we are able to see, but that we will know someday. Let me explain.

The night I received the call and was told that my husband died, is a complete blur yet clear at the same time. If that makes sense. I knew before the call that something was wrong, I had received a call from rescue people that something had gone wrong but that they had no information yet. I knew something went wrong on the canyon, I knew someone was hurt, but I didn’t know what or who or why. When I was handed the phone with anticipation of hearing my love’s voice, eagerly crying out to him to tell me what happened, it was not him on the other line. Brett, his best friend, was waiting to tell me that the other half of my soul had passed away on the river that day. I knew when I heard his voice. It is the moment that my life changed forever, and the moment that I feel part of myself died as well. After that it is a blur. People were talking and crying and living and I felt that I was not there.  So, the best I have to describe it is clear yet foggy at the same time. The darkest time I could have ever imagined possible.

All of that said, through this dark, dark walk, all of us who were closest to Curt on this earth, me, his family, my family, we all have expressed to each other that we know that Curt is ok. We have expressed that this world is bigger than we are and so is the reason that Curt was taken from us so soon. We know that we can not do this life on our own, and now, more than ever, we rely on our Creator to carry us and lead us through this long and curvy road. What is also amazing is the fact that not only do we all know this and have felt it during the darkest times of our lives, Curt was filmed on camera the same day he died, saying the same thing. Expressing that this world, this amazing, vast, and raw earth, is bigger than we are and we can not do it on our own. If we all agree on this fact, my beautiful husband and those of us who are left here with gut wrenching pain, then how can it not be true?

So, how do we move forward with a question mark over our head and not knowing what caused my husband to drown? I do so because I know that this world has shifted because of Curt’s death. It is bigger than we are and I know that we will know the reason one day. Even during the deepest, darkest hours of the first few days after finding out about my husbands death, I felt that this was always the time, it was already set, that he was going to go home to be with our Lord on March 18th 2014. I can't explain it, and I don't even really know what I mean by it. What I do know now is that Curt is not hurting, Curt is alright. He is with our Lord and he now knows the secrets of the world that we all long to know. He knows of our beautiful paths that we all are left here to walk down. He knows the hurt and the sorrow that we feel, but he also knows the in-depth opposite of those realities. He knows the pure joy and magnificent light that awaits us. He knows we will be ok. He knows that we will persevere and grow. This is what keeps me going. This is how I breath every day and put one foot in front of the other.

Video of Curt's trip on the Canyon