The List

There wasn't enough time. That's what I used to tell myself. There wasn't enough time to do all the things I would like to do in life. It was hard enough to keep up with the things I had to do.

Because of my grandmother's last words to me, I've come to live my life by a different standard.

I came home from work one afternoon and found the red light of my answering machine blinking. I hit play thinking it would be a solicitor's message. My finger hovered above the delete button. Instead, I heard my father's voice.

"Miles," he said. His voice sounded grave and tired. "You might want to drive home tonight. Ma's in bad shape. She may not make it through the night. Call me when you get this."

The message wasn't totally unexpected. My grandmother had existed beneath the pall of Alzheimer's for the last five years. A year had passed since my last visit with her. On that day, I had stayed at her side for exactly an hour by my watch listening to her babble incoherently. She had been unable to call my name and laughed at jokes to which only she knew the punch-line. Finally, I rose from her bedside and told her the time had come for me to leave. She had seemed so engrossed in her own world; I thought she would barely acknowledge my departure. But as soon as I announced my intentions, she stood from her bed and took my hands in hers.

"Honey," she said to me, looking sternly into my eyes. "Are you reading your Bible every night?"

Amazed by her sudden lucidity, I barely had the wit to conjure a lie.

"Most nights I do," I said. As soon as the words left my mouth, my face turned red with shame.

"The Lord knows when you read his Word," she said. Then she collapsed on the bed and her eyes grew cloudy once more. "My husband was never the same after the war. Liquor is the juice of the Devil. I worked my fingers to the bone to raise your daddy," she said.

"Bye, Grandma. I'll come to see you again soon." This was also a lie and my voice quivered as it left my mouth. I left her room and walked quickly through the hall of the nursing home and out the door, relieved the duty of my visit was done and ashamed of my relief.

Now I had to perform this duty one final time.

My fingers dialed four digits of my father's number before I hung up and called my girlfriend, Sandra, instead. She answered on the first ring.

"Hey," I said. "What are you doing?"

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"Nothing. Why?"

"Something is. I can tell it in your voice."

I sighed. The girl knew me far too well. "I had a message from my father. He wants me to come home. My grandmother may not live through the night."

There was a pause on the other end. Then she said, "I'm sorry, baby. Do you want me to go with you?"

"No, I'd rather just go by myself."

"Are you sure? I can be ready to go in fifteen minutes. You could just swing by and get me. It might make the drive more bearable if you had me to talk to."

I started to say 'no' again, but realized I wanted her to be with me.

"It's not going to be a fun trip," I warned her. "Unless you just have a thing for death and funerals."

She laughed. "See you when you get here. Love you!"

Without waiting for my reply, she hung up. I found myself smiling as the dial tone rang in my ear. We had been together for nearly a year now, but I had yet to say the three magic words aloud to her. She was loyal and beautiful and deserved to hear them. So many times, they had nearly tumbled from my lips, but something had always held me back.

"I love you too," I said to no one.

Then I called my dad and told him I was coming.


It was a four hour drive from Savannah to my small hometown on the other side of the state. Sandra tried to lighten my mood with small talk and laughter, but her efforts were to no avail. I remained morose and distant and could not bring myself to even look at her. She finally gave up and held my hand, seeming content to ride in silence.

It was nearly midnight by the time we reached my grandmother's home. The nursing home had released her so that she might pass her final hours in familiar surroundings. My dad sat by her side with blood-shot eyes as she slept.

A hospice nurse attended to the IV bag mounted to her bed and checked her vital signs.

"She's stable and comfortable," she said. "I think she's going to make it through the night. All of y'all look like you need some sleep."

My father appeared so lost in thought that he barely acknowledged my presence. He decided to do as the nurse suggested and patted me on the back as he left the room without speaking.

I stayed for another moment, observing my grandmother. Her breathing sounded uneven and raspy. Her body was severely emaciated and she seemed to have grown twice as many wrinkles since I had last seen her. A cynical part of me wondered why I'd bothered to drive four hours to see her go out with such a whimper.

Sandra took my hand. "She'll wake up in the morning and talk to you. You'll see."

"I don't see how you could think that," I told her, not meaning to sound so irritable.

"From what you've told me about her, she won't leave this world without saying bye to you," Sandra insisted.

"If you say so," I said.

We left the room and left her lying there.

We slept in the same bed in which I had spent my teenage years. My mother died when I was fourteen and Grandma had raised me after that. She never spoke a harsh word to me in my entire life and did her best to spoil me. I was late to school on many days because she insisted on having me eat a hearty breakfast before leaving and would do anything for me as long as I accompanied her to church every Sunday and made the honor roll. The grades were the easy part. I was a natural student. Church was endured to make her happy. Once I went away to college, I never entered the doors of the First Baptist Church ever again. This broke her heart although she never told me so directly. I was of a skeptical nature to begin with and college was all it took to convince me to reason my religion away.

I gazed around the room that night before sleeping. My high school football jersey hung by the sleeves on the wall. A multitude of athletic and academic trophies lined my dresser and bookshelves. The room almost overflowed with books and notebooks full of my poems and half-written stories. It seemed to glow with the spirit of my childhood. I was full of dreams then. None of them included becoming a disillusioned insurance agent who couldn't commit to his girlfriend.

At 6:30 in the morning, the nurse woke me.

"Sir," she said. "I'm sorry to wake you, but your grandmother is asking for you. She seems to be aware. I've never seen her so alert."

I shook off the remnants of sleep and went to my grandmother's room. I paused in the doorway watching her argue furiously with a new nurse whose shift must have just started.

"Ma'am," the nurse said. "He's coming. A nurse has just gone to wake him. Please be patient."

"I'm here," I announced.

My voice startled the nurse and she turned to see me.

"Ok," she said, sounding relieved. "I'll leave the two of you alone for a minute."

I approached my grandmother's bedside and stood over her. She looked back at me with eyes undulled by Alzheimer's. The return of her intelligence caused her to look thirty years younger. The transformation shocked me. Wide-eyed, I regarded her almost fearfully. I tried to speak, but couldn't. This was not the same old and dying woman of the night before. This was the ghost of my grandmother as she once was: full of energy and moxie.

Her voice was calm and sure when she spoke.

"Miles, do you love your life?"

I was dumbfounded. "Do I love my life?" I repeated.

She merely waited for my reply.

"Well, love might be too strong of a word for it. But it's not too bad. I have a job and a girlfriend. I get the bills paid with enough left over to have fun with. It's not too bad."

Grandma regarded me with rebuke in her eyes. She was clearly not satisfied. "Miles, do you love your life?" she repeated more urgently than before.

"I guess you could say that," I said.

"My grandson loved his life. He had passion and energy," she said. "He had dreams. What do you have?"

I could not think of a suitable answer and decided to pretend to be ignorant of her present state.

"Grandma, I think you need to rest a bit. You're going to tire yourself out like this," I said, putting a hand on her shoulders.

She knocked my hand away with more strength than she seemed capable of possessing.

"I'm going to meet the Lord today, but before I do, I'm going to straighten you out! You're going to make me a promise right here and now!"

"What do you want me to promise, Grandma? You want me to go to church every Sunday? I can't promise you that. I'm sorry."

"No, sweetie, I want you to promise to do all of the things on your list."

"My list?" I asked, thinking her lucid state had finally ended and feeling shamefully relieved because of it. "What list?"

"The list under my pillow right now," she said. With a monumental effort, she lifted her head and I understood she meant for me to retrieve this mysterious document.

Reluctantly, I felt beneath it and pulled out a single sheet of brittle, yellowed notebook paper and examined it skeptically.

My skepticism soon turned to wonder. This words upon it had obviously been written by my own hand and yet I had no recollection of ever putting these thoughts to paper. In the right-hand corner, I had recorded the date: July 17th, 1987. I had been fifteen years old. I read it silently.

Today, I am going to write down a list of twenty things I plan to do in my life. Some of these items are things I want to accomplish. Others are ways I want to live. My determination and conviction will never waver in my pursuit to accomplish these things. So vow I, Miles Prescott, on this day, July 17th, 1987.

1) Climb Mount Kilimanjaro.
2) Write a novel. Be a writer forever.
3) Read every book I ever want to read.
4) Travel to every continent.
5) Go rafting down the Colorado River beneath the Grand Canyon
6) Explore the Amazon jungle.
7) See the great pyramids in Egypt.
8) SCUBA dive in deep ocean water.
9) Bench press 350 lbs. Never be old and flabby.
10) Learn to speak a foreign language fluently.
11) Fall in love with a beautiful woman who loves me back.
12) Learn to play a musical instrument with great skill.
13) Accept everyone I meet with an open heart and words of kindness.
14) Do everything with an honest effort and determination.
15) Help my fellow man at every opportunity.
16) Be confident but humble.
17) Think and meditate often on spiritual things.
18) Depend as little as possible on material things.
19) Take note of beauty at every opportunity.
20) Be a great and faithful father and husband.

If I do these things, I believe that I will live a full and prosperous life and also be a man of great character.

After reading the list, I looked again at my grandmother, amazed that she had kept this list for all of these years and equally amazed that I could possibly forget something written by my own hand with such conviction.

My eyes returned to the first item. Climb Mount Kilimanjaro. I thought of the photo of this mountain that hung on the wall in my office at work. I had cut it out of Outdoor magazine three months ago only because its stark beauty had struck me. But I had never seriously considered the idea of climbing it.

I looked again at my grandmother. She regarded me with wise, old eyes. I could think of nothing to say.

"Make me a promise, honey," she said with tenderness. "Promise me you'll live by that list. Can you do that?"

"I don't know, Grandma. It would be hard for me to do some of those things now. You know how things happen in life. You start out so idealistic and full of dreams and then things happen and you have to deal with reality."

"Don't make excuses, baby. Just promise me you'll do the things on that list."

"I'll try," I said.

"No, that's not good enough. Would you deny your dying grandmother who raised you a simple promise?" Her eyes blazed as she spoke. She had always been a determined and stubborn woman. She was no different now.

"Ok," I said, exasperated. "I'll do it."

"Good. I love you, Miles." She lay back in the bed and closed her eyes, leaving me holding the list.

I watched her for awhile, unable to tear myself away from her bedside. She seemed to age again right in front of me, reverting to the old and withered breathing corpse she had been the night before.

I don't know how much time passed before I realized she was no longer breathing.

"Grandma?" I asked. But she was gone. I lingered for a little longer, proud to have been there at the moment of her death and very touched by her last words. I finally left the room.

"I think it's over," I told the nurse standing outside. She rushed into the room and a moment later confirmed that she was dead.

I didn't cry until the next day and then it was not the desperate weeping of grief, but cleansing tears shed in appreciation of a woman who gave me all the love and devotion a person could ever want. She lived her life well. I could only hope to do the same.

----------
"What did your grandmother say to you?" Sandra asked as we drove home after the funeral.

"Nothing much," I answered, conscious of the folded paper in my pocket. "She did say she loved me. Those were her last words to me."

"I bet she loved you as much as I do," she said. She placed her hand on my thigh as we drove. I almost answered her, but something held me back.

I went to work the next day and did my job with the same emotionless functionality as always. On the wall in my office, the photo of Kilimanjaro chastised me for ignoring the promise to my grandmother.

There wasn't enough time, I thought. And not enough money either.

A week later, a check came in the mail. It was signed by my grandmother and written for the amount of fifty thousand dollars. A note inside the envelope stated this was her life's savings. She had willed it all to me. I put the money in the bank and went back to work.

In my office, Kilimanjaro haunted me. I could not ignore the photograph or bring myself to remove it. I knew it was not the tallest mountain in the world by a long shot. Its peak crested ten-thousand feet lower than Mount Everest. But it was the highest point on the continent of Africa and the highest stand alone mountain on the planet. Kilimanjaro did not need a range of brothers to reach into the clouds. Instead, it vaulted above the Plains of the Serengeti of its own magnificent accord. No great technical knowledge was needed to reach its summit, only a good pair of walking boots, an iron spirit and an adventurous soul. The first time I'd ever heard of the mountain was in Hemingway's short story, The Snows of Kilimanjaro. It was the story of a man who found Kilimanjaro to be his own personal heaven. I did not seek this in Kilimanjaro, but perhaps my motivations were similar. In my youth, I would have said that it was a place where I believed enlightenment could be found. But now, I would not allow myself such idealism. To climb this mountain would simply be a cool thing to do. Besides, I'd promised my grandmother I would. What more motivation was needed?

And yet, I took no action. Days turned to weeks and weeks to months. I did my job and put my promise aside. Grandma's money languished in a savings account. The photo of Kili continued to call to the spirit of the adventure-seeking boy I had been. Perhaps, I would have existed in the same inert state forever if Sandra hadn't forced my hand.

She dumped me.

"Miles," she said to me one night nearly a year after my grandmother's death. "I love you now as much as I always have. I'm sure I will love you for the rest of my life. But the time has come for me to move on. We've been together for nearly two years and you've given me no indication that you want to truly make a life with me. I want to have all the things most girls want. I want to get married, have a family, and live a fulfilling life. I believe I could do all of that with you, but you can't seem to let it happen. I have been the picture of patience for so long and now my patience is gone and I have to leave unless you can make me believe you intend to marry me. I don't want to leave you, Miles. But you're causing me to think I don't have a choice."

Foolishly, I had not seen this coming. "Sandra," I said. "I do love you and couldn't bear to lose you. You are the most important person in my life and I would be lost without you." I tried to hug and kiss her to punctuate my words.

But she held me back.

"Miles, I'm glad to hear you say these things," she said. "But let me ask you this. Can you picture us being married? Can you picture us having children together and living the rest of our lives together?"

Her question stopped me in my tracks. I had prevented the sad truth from coming to the surface of my mind for so long. Now I had to speak it aloud.

"Sandra, baby, I'm not ready to be married yet. I have too much stuff I want to do before I can do that. I don't want to marry anyone but you, but I just don't think it's the right time yet."

"What are the things you want to do so badly, Miles? I don't see you doing anything, but going to work selling insurance every day. You obviously don't love your job, but I don't see you doing anything else. I think you're just stuck in a rut, Miles, and I'd like to find a man who isn't, to tell you the truth. I'd like to find a man who's not afraid to do the things he wants to do."

She hesitated in her speech and seemed genuinely angry at me. In our entire relationship, she had never been anything but tolerant and patient. But now she was mad. She seemed to debate saying something else and then she did.

"You know what? I've been stuck in a rut too. Every day I stay with you is another day wasted. And you know what else? I'm not going to waste another day of my life. I'm going to leave you to waste away on your own."

Then she calmly walked out the door and drove home. It was the last time I ever saw her. My heart was broken. For a month, I called her with repeated pleas to give me another chance. But when she asked for eternal commitment, I could not give it and she would not relent from this demand. At last, I was forced to give up and live my life alone.

I thought deeply about her words. 'What did I want to do so badly?' she had asked me. I thought too of my promise to my grandmother.

On a day soon after, I took the list from my bottom dresser drawer, placed it in my pocket and brought it to work. I sat at my desk that day stewing, unable to take my eyes off of the mountain on the wall. When the work day ended, I took the picture from its place and left, never to return. I began preparations to travel to Kilimanjaro.

Three months later, I landed in the Nairobi airport, and took a long and bumpy shuttle ride over the plains of Eastern Africa across the Kenyan border into Tanzania. I sat by the window and watched in wonder as gazelles and giraffes galloped and loped about, barely mindful of our presence. The sky was clear and mostly cloudless that day and it was with great surprise that I noted the sound of distant thunder. But a moment after the sound had passed, I realized that it was not thunder at all, but the roar of a lion. Wide-eyed and with a thumping heart, I searched the savanna for the noble beast, but failed to see it.

The shuttle finally came to a stop in the village of Moshi. In the distance, I saw the mountain with my own eyes for the first time. The day was hazy and it glimmered like a vision in a dream. The weather was hot and humid, but the peaks of Kilimanjaro were painted white with snow. To see it sent chills racing up and down my spine.

But even here, cynicism followed me. It was just a mountain, I told myself. Hundreds of people scaled its heights every year. By climbing this mountain, I would be doing nothing truly extraordinary. How could I expect some grand epiphany from such an undertaking? Was I so foolish to believe that climbing a mountain would grant me some transcendent insight into the meaning of life?

But then I became conscious of the list in my back pocket and cast these thoughts aside. I would climb this mountain to its highest peak and put all thoughts of 'why' aside. I planned to follow the "normal route", also called the Marangu Route, to the top of Uhuru Peak, Kilimanjaro's highest point and the highest place in all of Africa as well.

After spending a single night in a cheap and sparsely furnished inn in Moshi, I met up with a group of twenty other climbers and a team of porters, cooks, and guides. We began our ascent of Kilimanjaro. It took us six days to climb the mountain. The trail was well marked, the scenery beautiful and majestic. True to my nature, I was friendly but aloof towards my fellow climbers. I learned that many of them were climbing a mountain for the very first time as well. For the first three days, I walked comfortably in short sleeves. But after leaving Horombo Hut on the fourth morning, I found the trail had steepened and the temperature had dropped dramatically. I was forced to don my gore-tex jacket and change from jeans to a pair of insulated shell pants and long underwear. The next three days are still a blur to me. I remember little but being constantly cold and tired. The nights, spent in my tent or the dilapidated huts at each stopping point, seemed to pass in a blink of an eye.

My party departed from Kibo hut to the summit at exactly midnight of the sixth day. The temperature had now dropped close to zero and no one spoke as we slogged up the frozen path. When we reached a position near the extinct volcano's rim called Gillman's Point, the path steepened sharply. Not far past this landmark, half of my company turned back, too tired to continue. It was here that I began to feel the affects of the altitude as well. My muscles screamed for mercy and breathing became an odious task in the paper thin air near the mountain's peak. My lungs and throat burned with every exhalation and my very existence began to consist of one desire: to move my feet ever forward and upward. I walked with my head down, watching my boots as they pressed upon the frozen ground, my will pushing them forward. Every step became an act of indomitable will. I began a routine of counting ten steps and resting for a twenty count in a vain attempt to catch my breath.

I could not help but feel a stab of envy for those who were on their way down, no longer engaged in pitched battle with this mountain. But the list in my pocket and my own desire would not allow me to turn back until my goal had been reached. I had read somewhere that the final push to the top of Kili was as painful as childbirth and now believed it was probably true.

But I persevered. Five hours after leaving Kibo Hut, I reached the summit. A lonely sign announced my success. Someone shined a flashlight against it so we could read its words. I was so overcome with exhaustion that doing so seemed to require a great effort.

Congratulations, it read. You have reached Uhuru Peak, Tanzania. 5895 meters. Africa's highest point. World's tallest free-standing mountain.

Then I turned my eyes to the east and saw the sun rising with blinding brightness. I stared at this sight for a long time, waiting to fill the exhilaration and the magical, mystical feeling that such a sight should have inspired. But I felt nothing. I was exhausted to the bone and eager to descend and return to civilization.

Standing at the peak of Kilimanjaro, I was disappointed to feel a great hollowness inside of me. The scenery was amazing. There was no doubt of it. Besides my present company, I knew of no one else who had ventured upon this ground. But what difference did that make? How would standing here in this rare air upon this high peak change me in any way? Would it make me wiser? Would it make me a man of greater character? I didn't think so.

I posed for pictures with the guides and my fellow climbers wearing a false smile and even cracking jokes and making small talk. But inwardly, I despaired. Nothing had changed. No awe-inspiring moment enveloped me. No moment of transcendent insight occurred within my soul.

Impatiently, I watched the rest of my company mill about, enjoying their moment of triumph and soaking in the magnificent view.

Then I overheard the words of a porter.

"I always wait until I am here to pray," he said. "I think, being so close to God, he is more likely to hear me."

His words resonated with me as nothing else had. My heart and mind opened then and I looked down on all of Africa with fresh eyes. The plains below me seemed to roll forever. I breathed in the thin air and held it in my lungs, suddenly joyous to be standing there in that moment. Even my weariness seemed suddenly pure. It reminded me that I had attained a goal through sincere effort, discipline, and determination.

Inspired by the porter's words, I wandered away from the rest of the group and knelt on the frozen, rocky ground. I looked into the sky and prayed for the first time in many years.

"Thank you," I whispered aloud. "Thank you for this moment and this mountain and all of the things that lie below it." I prayed for more, but not with words.

At last, I stood again and observed the sun's rising with fresh eyes. In spite of the cold, its heat was a blessing against my face.

I removed the list from my pocket and read the first item.

Climb Mount Kilimanjaro, it read. With an ink pen, I prepared to draw a line through the words, signifying that the task had been completed. But then I thought better of this action. I circled the words instead. I couldn't say exactly why, but it seemed more fitting. I shielded my eyes and looked again towards the sun. Somewhere behind it, my grandmother smiled down upon me and rejoiced in my accomplishment. I looked down again at the list. There were still many things left to do.

With a sense of purpose, I began my descent.