You fall, she hauls

When she began, Y2K was a big concern and Barack Obama hadn't even begun his career in politics. Now 27 years after she started, she has just spent her last day as an active member of the Butternut ski patrol.

My wife is a truly exceptional person. She has two gears, fully committed and exhausted. She has spent her adult life in volunteer service to others whether it be on the ambulance corps in our former hometown, working with MS patients in the swimming pool or at this little mountain in the Berkshires, where as the patrol's motto reads, "You fall, we haul."  

We began the ski patrol journey together. Both of us came to the sport as adults. When our children were old enough to put sticks on the bottom of their feet, so did we. And when they reached an age where skiing with their friends, or on the racing team, meant my wife and I were left staring at each other, she and I decided on joining the patrol to fill the void.

I lasted one chapter in the extremely long book on the medical issues that had to be mastered. Blood and done for me. But my wife was, as in the rest of her life, dedicated and relentless. And, after over a hundred hours of preparation, a full winter both on the snow and in the patrol room, she began her career tending to those who had fallen on hard times with hard landings on the hill.

Through the years, even on the days when she just didn't want to get out of bed, whether it was zero degrees outside or raining, whether she had a hundred other matters to attend to or one other thing she really wanted to do, she appeared at the mountain. She arose in the dark and arrived at first light. Her work not finished until the last skier had found their way to the bottom, often as darkness was about to descend.

Day upon day, year upon year.

Our children grew up but never lost their attachment to this tiny bump of a mountain. Our son still passionate about what remains a most abiding love for him. Our daughter, now married and with two young children. The oldest, now four, spending her first full winter on these slopes, beginning to master the same greens, blues and blacks that her mother conquered so effortlessly three decades ago.

My wife and I were long ago surpassed as skiers by our kids. But until the last few years, she hauled those sleds with the injured to the base where their wounds (physical and emotional) could be addressed.

On her next birthday, my wife will turn 70. The rigors of patrol, the long days and the big commitment, are now harder. And there is another generation of skiers in our family that she is anxious to chase down the trails.

Yesterday the mountain officially closed for the season. And yesterday, a chapter in my wife's life concluded. Well, almost. For though she has now retired from patrol she is not really gone. She is now officially, an alumni. And being who she is, she will keep up with her annual refreshers so she can continue to assist on the mountain on those days when the spirit moves her.

So, if you should be at Butternut one day in the years to come and this beautiful, small, older woman should ski up to you and ask if you need some help, just know you are in the best of hands.

To a job well done and a life extremely well spent. A million thanks to my wife is not nearly enough.