The Widower’s Rant: 2025 - More Peaks, Less Valleys

At long last, the luxury of time to write. A benefit of an uncomplicated holiday season I suppose. The lull is welcome. The last two months have been quite the vortex, but only in a positive rotation. I began by reading my Rant from one year ago. After wiping the tears from my eyes–the photos at the end got me–I began to take stock of 2025. 

Let’s do the numbers.* 27 rants in 2024 (and I started in July!) and 14 rants in 2025 (including this one). Apparently, 50% less to rant about. 20 months and 3 weeks (still counting, just not every day) since the unimaginable. Six pleasure trips, two business trips, just under 62,000 flight miles. 365 days and ~584 million miles around the sun without Beth by my side. And yet, never entirely without her.

Upon returning from Slovenia, training for the upcoming Antarctica adventure was in full force. I created a specialist AI-Coach who pushed, reassured, quantified, and helped me manage a day-by-day training routine right up to the taper before the expedition. I pushed myself and never felt stronger. And then I got sick. This trip was my Olympics. I started preparing and training, and planning, and plotting, and training, and worrying, and accumulating mountains of specialized gear (that was fun!) since early February. Ten months preparing for a singular event, and I got a sinus infection. With 10 days until my flight to Buenos Aires, I went from big hikes and sessions at the gym to lying in my bed. I felt very alone. And scared.

Fortunately, my AI-Coach was also a board-certified physician, so I leaned heavily into my day-by-day recovery. Psychologically, I must admit, it really helped. I felt less alone, reassured, and, in fact, comforted by this support. A new challenge of living alone, solved. I was repeatedly told the infection was minor and was not going bacterial, that my fitness was not declining, and that in the end, I’d be fine. 

I could, and one day will, write chapters about this trip to Antarctica. The Widower Rants about Travel, perhaps. I kicked off the adventure by hiring a private guide for a tune-up/fitness check backcountry skiing trip up the Martial Glacier in Ushuaia, Argentina (Sure enough, I was fine). After two days on Drake’s Passage, I was rewarded with five back-to-back ski touring days on the Antarctic Peninsula. My months of training paid off. I was fit, eager for two sessions a day, and some with multiple ascents. I climbed a ridgeline in crampons through near-whiteout conditions, then skied down it. I didn’t let the group or myself down. It was simply epic. The penguins, seals, whales, birds, icebergs, glaciers, colors, polar plunge, sleeping overnight on the ice, new friends, old friends, and so on, are lifetime memories of an incredible journey. What a lucky SOB.  

Though I’ve successfully outsourced some of my day-to-day dialogue Beth endured with unending patience (really, are you still debating which gloves to buy?) to an infinitely untiring dialogue box, I miss her most and notice her absence most acutely for the big questions and the big events. After I climbed back on the Zodiac after 5 days at the end of the earth, following 10 months of focused training and countless hours of preparation, she was the person I most wanted to tell. I collapsed into a heap—from the emotional buildup and release, from being able to do something incredible because she freed me to do it, and because she is my best friend/closest confidant. Which she’ll always be. And why someone walking by cabin 405 might have heard me sobbing, exclaiming, “We did it, Beth. We did it. We fucking did it!”

In 2024, grief was a terrible roller-coaster of blind twists and turns. I never knew when I’d be dashed on the rocks or held under the waves. Drowning and wallowing in a sadness I could not have imagined. Grief is still an asshole, and kneecaps me at unexpected moments, but I’m no longer pinned to the bottom, not knowing when, if, I'll surface. Now, I know it will pass, and more quickly. It’s less about a valley so deep you can’t see the sun on the horizon. Now, I know I’ll ascend the next summit quickly and won’t be out of breath. The view from the peaks is incredible. 

The 2024 holiday/New Year's card chronicled the year when everything changed. The 2025 card marked a year in motion, following Beth’s mantra to “Be at Play.” It was another year of firsts, but this time, not of loss. Of new adventures, new peaks. And 50% fewer valleys. 

The upside of being exceedingly busy is that there’s always something to do, and something to do right after that. This appeals to my task-driven nature. This creates a stark contrast with the quiet moments when I suddenly become aware of the emptiness surrounding me. Henley and Frey articulated it well (though in quite a different context):

“...a big old house gets lonely

I guess every form of refuge has its price.”

Being at the lake is wonderful. But it can also be isolating. I prepare almost every meal in my kitchen. I’ve made a point of not living like the stereotypical bachelor, only needing one spoon and one bowl while eating over the sink. I set a place at the dining room table, and respect the food. But it’s a table for 8, and I take just one chair. I rotate among the four chairs looking out the window to mix things up and not wear a hole in any one of them. But the solitude at the big table is deafening. 

After dinner is done, the pots, pans, and dishes are put away, and I wander back upstairs. The quiet overwhelms me, and once again I'm surprised to discover I’m alone in our home. While the only child in me revels in the me-centric world of choices without consultation, what I wouldn’t give to listen once more to the voice of reason. I really didn’t need those nice binoculars (which I used once). Even with background music, the house is quiet in a way that leaves no doubt I’m the only one here.

I've mentioned before that our family holidays tended to be small in attendance, and readily time-shifted to accommodate being somewhere more fun. We have our traditions, like the Christmas Moose and Christmas Sushi. But once we moved from Southern California, we no longer had the family events that typify the American holiday experience. After the kids left, holidays were mostly for Beth and me. Yet we knew it was our holiday together, we didn't pine for large, noisy gatherings. We had each other, and that was just perfect.

Unlike last year, when I fled the country to welcome the holidays with friends who are family, this year I wanted to spend time with our kids. Christmas Eve morning, I woke up and began buttoning up the house. I felt off. Then, deeply melancholy. There was no good reason. I slept well; I didn't have an overwhelming list of things to do. To the contrary, it was a peaceful morning. Yet there I sat with my coffee, wondering why I'd be in a funk when I had everything to be thankful for.

Ah, it's Christmas. The holiday brought into clear focus that Beth isn't here. No baking cookies and smearing dough on the fridge door handles. Vince Guaraldi's "A Charlie Brown Christmas" playing in the background. The soot-smudged floppy reindeer on the mantle. Like a slap in the face, I'm suddenly confronted with her absence and an unfillable hole.

The winter storm, dubbed "The Christmas Miracle," was due at any moment. I needed to drive over the pass to avoid worsening roads. But Don 2.0 knew what he really needed to do, and it was not to be held to the schedule or task list. I went to the gym for an hour and reset my mood. There are times I don't recognize myself, and this was one of them. I needed to be in motion, get the blood flowing. The drive could wait.

I spent Christmas Eve with Curtis, Robyn, and our doggies. Christmas Day with Lauren and David (and their doggie) down in Santa Barbara. The priceless luxury of time to talk, reflect, and learn. Lauren remembered Christmas Sushi, and I'm proud to report, continues to host the rainy-day bakery. A daddy-daughter dinner I’ll hold onto. New patterns are forming. And while the hole in our family is always present, we keep moving forward, each of us doing our level best to live our best lives ever.

There’s simply no greater gift than to have the time to share with your kids, and for them to likewise enjoy the time with you. Time with my dad always had the weight of obligation. It’s just lovely to hang out with them without feeling like you are taking them away from something better. 

I’m approaching two years of navigating being involuntarily single. There’s no novelty in it anymore. As the saying goes, it is what it is. I’ve moved from being thrown into a situation I hate, fear, and can’t understand to one of curiosity, fear, and still don’t understand. The Antarctica trip was an eye-opener. While it was terrific to have C/A at the dinner table and especially to enjoy Buenos Aires together, I could have done the expedition on my own. The common objective made it easy to form fast friends. It turns out there’s an entire world built around solo adventure travel. Sure, it would be nice to share new peaks with adventure buddies. But I know now I can navigate it alone. I didn't want to. But I can. And it feels okay. 

In 2025, I learned I could train for a level of fitness I couldn't have imagined I was capable of in my 60s. The physical conditioning, perhaps a bit more monastic at times than I'd want to repeat, further strengthened my resilience. I'm not a passive hostage to a life tragedy. I get to write a new script, and the main character can do anything they want.

What will 2026 bring? Nothing is on the calendar. Antarctica wasn’t on the calendar until February of this year, so a lot can happen in 30 days. I have a new goal to ski all seven continents. Three to go. A few other adventures are percolating through my brain. As I say, high-value problems. I know how lucky I am, and I’m grateful. During one of my hikes, I felt that familiar twang of loss, the prolonged exhalation of, “how can you not be here?” It still feels as surreal as the afternoon of April 5, 2024. The unanswerable question that I keep asking. As I looked around at the majesty of Tahoe, I felt comforted to be in nature, to be outside, to be alive. A verse popped into my head:

She’s in the Sky, she’s in the Trees

She’s in the Lake, she’s in the Snow

She’s with me, wherever I go.

And I felt a sense of comfort. Her life force wrapped around me. Always and forever. Wherever I am, wherever I’ll go, alone is different now.

And that’s how I’ll start 2026. Looking for new peaks. And more at ease in the valleys.

Happy New Year

I miss you Beth. I love you forever.

Donald

* My favorite headline/segment by Kai Ryssdal on NPR's Marketplace analyzing daily market trends,