Editor's Note: On May 28, Alpine Ascents Everest 2002 Expedition Guide Luis Benitez reported on a promise he had made to woman named Ingrid he had met in Gorak Shep, a promise that he would try to deliver personal effects to the final resting place of her husband, Peter Ganner, who died on Everest more than a year ago. Ingrid has just learned of Benitez's success, this is her letter.
Last Friday night a friend from Germany phoned me and told me that there was a message for me on the Internet. When I returned from Nepal I had sometimes looked at the Everest web pages, but I was too nervous that something might happen to you or to one of your teammates. So I did not look any more.
What a wonderful story, I am deeply touched. Thank you so very much for the fantastic words you found to describe this accident. Thank you for Peter, for my children and especially for me.
Though most of the time I feel very good and I am happy, enjoying my new life, doing lots of rock climbing and going out in Vienna, tears were and are running down my cheeks whenever I think of your story. Lots of emotions come to the surface.
Of course I want to say thank you that you really managed to bring our *Kata and family photo to Peter's resting place on the Kangchung Face, that you united the family symbolically, and that Peter is not so lonesome up there. And I congratulate you and your team for climbing Everest safely.
After I met you in Gorak Shep I could hardly sleep because I was thinking again and again - as I have many times over the past year - how Peter must have felt sitting there for 18 hours. The next day we were to climb Kala Patar and I decided during the night that I would not walk one step.
But in the morning there was wonderful clear weather and, astonishingly, I was not tired and had no headache so I started to climb this Kala Patar, especially because I knew Peter had climbed this mountain during sunset one year before. I reached the top and the view was amazing: clear sky wherever I looked, and Everest, with the Khumbu Icefall very near, and this was the first time I understood why Peter had wanted to climb that mountain. At the same time I felt what a wonderful place to have as a final place to stay. Peter loved the mountains so very much.
And up there on the summit I understood that this mountain had not been more important than his family. That had been a great problem for me for a long time. I knew Peter had wanted both: family and Everest. He loved his family, but he also loved to climb. I was reconciled with Peter, to fate. I felt free, it was like having twisted a lever-arm. I really felt happy up there, we were singing and laughing and eating and having fun. But it might have also been the news of the broken fixed rope [Click for Ingrid's letter to those who helped Peter] that made me feel better — to know that Peter had not made a technical mistake. I know he had returned a bit too late and lack of oxygen had made him helpless, but in the end it was fate.
For the children it was also a very great help that they surely knew that he had been on his way back, down to family. I wish I could write in German, I could express much better what I want to say, but I have to try it in English so excuse my inability to find the right words.
As for that 18 hours, I always tell myself, it is over, Peter had made it, it is finished for him, and for a long time, more than a year. He has peace, he really has peace. It is us, the surviving dependants, who always suffer and suffer again. So I stopped suffering then, it does not help Peter, it does not change things at all. It is what it is. It is more important, that I could help Peter more, when I try to stay strong and healthy and happy and to be a good parent, the only parent for his children and may be one day for his grandchildren.
A few months ago I saw a slideshow about Nepal, Hinduism and Buddhism and the following parable was told: An old Sadhu wakes up and everything on him is mixed up. The arms are where there should be legs, his head is where his arms should be and so on.
He looks in the mirror and discovers what has happened and he says to himself, "How excellent, how great, how wonderful! What have the gods planned for me!"
This is now the way I see my future and I am looking forward to it. Things have changed extremely, nothing is like it was before, but I am curious and I love my new life because I can't turn things back.
In the end I want to send you a poem an unknown soldier killed in action in North Ireland had written for his parents in the event of his death.
Do not Stand at my Grave and Weep
Do not stand at my grave and weep;
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.
The beginning of this poem is written on the memorial plate on the stupa we built for Peter near Dughla.
So I send my regards and my best wishes to you and whenever you come to Austria be sure to visit me and the children, 20, 23, 26, 27 and be a guest in my house.
* Kata— white scarf presented as a sign of honor. These may be blessed and become sacred relics.
— Ingrid Ganner
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