Home > Marriage > Spirituality > I Almost Killed My Wife but I liberated our marriage
I Almost Killed My Wife but I liberated our marriage
Paul Kortepeter | posted 9/30/2008
 2 of 3
I tried to hide my growing concern from Jenny. After all, I had been full of bravado from the start just to get her to join me. But the higher we climbed, the more I sensed the vastness deepening beneath us. Turning shakily from the snow in front of me, I looked down. Down, down, down. Panic gripped me. Turning back, I stopped climbing and held onto my ice ax for dear life. My knees wobbled dangerously. If I didn't calm down soon, I would fall.
"Hey, Jen. Hold up."
She paused.
"How are we going to get down?" I questioned tremulously.
I knew that ascent on a steep slope is often easier than descent. And you can add ropes to the list of items we didn't pack.
"How are we going to … " she said, almost meditatively. "I don't know."
"I'm freaked out," I said, putting it mildly.
"Are you praying?" she asked.
Apparently she had been praying. But for some reason I never think to pray during times of crisis—when I need prayer the most. Grateful for the reminder, I started pouring out my fears to God.
Jenny confided to me later that at that time she kept picturing herself rolling down the slope in a giant snowball, smashing against the rocks below. But she managed to sound cool.
"Don't look down," she encouraged. "Look up."
Reluctantly, and still dizzy, I looked up. Just then, the granite summit of Whitney gleamed in the morning light like a pyramid of antique silver. It towered to the right of us with a god-like presence: majestic and serene. The beauty seized my attention and arrested my downward thinking. As the seconds ticked by, God's presence became palpable. Above us. Below us. Beside us. All we had to do was put one foot in front of the other. I started to calm down. My legs felt less jittery.
My moment of vulnerability and Jenny's courage had helped us to see each other in a different light.
"Do you want to go down?" Jenny asked.
I was surprised to hear disappointment in her voice. Somewhere along the way, fear notwithstanding, she had started to enjoy herself.
"No, let's keep climbing."
We reached the summit that day. With Death Valley below and the Sierras all around, we celebrated with a long kiss and a candy bar. Too tired to linger, we snapped some photos and started back down. Though we had to cross some harrowing traverses and got caught in a miserable hailstorm, fear never dug its talons in me again like it had on the avalanche field.
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