Autumn in the Lake District is sublime. Ancient Yew and Oak reflect their multi-coloured coats across the glassy smooth surface of the waters, and the sun has an ambient glow that bathes the world in warm hues, complementing the gold and russeted tones of the leafy carpet crunching underfoot. My husband and I wrapped up in layers as we ambled around the shoreline of Lake Windemere, as a gentle introduction to this gorgeous corner of the country, and a prelude to our subsequent drive into the mountains.
That weekend, I desperately needed to touch base with something familiar; to feel grounded; to feel at peace. I yearned to be home, losing myself in the Ukhahlamba Drakensberg Mountains, which straddle the border between South Africa and Lesotho. I have happy memories of times spent there both with school friends and with family. I have hiked up to the source of the Tugela Falls, the second highest Falls in the world next to Angel Falls, and stood mere feet away from the edge, where at a height of some 3000m, it tumbles 950m into the Tugela Gorge below. That hike was in the middle of winter with my husband and the Falls were frozen at the time. But I was on top of the world and it mattered not to me that the stream's waters were not flowing. It was one of the most exhilarating experiences just knowing that I was standing at the source of the mighty Tugela river, and getting a front-seat view of the world below. The mountains have always been my happy place, where my heart feels at home. So when I had the yearning to go home in October 2012, what I really wanted to do was climb a mountain like my Drakensberg, and I found the perfect substitute in Helvellyn, also at some 950m high.
We had been resting in the ruins of the old wall on Striding Edge for the best part of ten minutes. The sun's rays filtered through the fog, diffuse light giving way to scattered beams brightening up the sky. Their heavenly appearance was a welcome respite from the gloominess of the afternoon, meeting us on the ancient brickwork as we sat soaking up the warmth. We had noticed a few of these broken-down turrets along the sharp ridgeway, as we hiked up the final stretch towards the peak but this was the first one where we had stopped. The path ahead was becoming quite narrow and the incline more steep, so we decided to take a break before the final push to the top.
I looked over my shoulder to where the summit met the sky and sighed. I felt happy again. It was the first time that we had been able to get a decent view of it, climbing up into the fog. We had spent most of the hike with very poor visibility of less than a few metres. We had been warned about the sudden onset of dense fog in the Lake District but foolishly had not taken the advice seriously. The allure of the mountains had kept us resolute in our goal as we ascended, but the fog had rolled in thick and fast and threatened to ruin the day.
We had not appreciated just how dangerous it would be to continue under these circumstances. When the fog finally started to clear beneath our feet we realised that we were staring down an almost perpendicular cliff to our left. Putting one step wrong could have had catastrophic consequences. To our right, the ridge fell away more gently and allowed the possibility of a light scramble down to the dam below.
"What do you think?" I asked, turning back to face my husband, "We're so close!" There was a brief silence as we both contemplated the six to seven hours already under our belt that day, and what it would mean to turn back now. I stared down the final stretch of a few hundred metres in defiance. "It's tempting, right?" But then I found myself looking down again at the sheer drop off, the loose rocks, the fog still present. I shifted my position on the wall feeling a little uneasy. None of us had any idea as to what the fog was going to do next. A family who had stopped ahead of us was now making their way down the grassy scramble into the valley. They had decided the stakes were too high.
I thought about why I had needed to climb Helvellyn that weekend. We were going through the very long and arduous process of trying to adopt children after being approved as adopters. We had experienced one disappointment after the next; heartache upon heartache as potential matches fell through. Helvellyn wasn't the only mountain we were busy climbing! I needed a distraction, to feel exhausted for a completely different reason, so that the other climb didn't feel so hard by comparison; to experience joy once again, and peace in the decisions we were making. I realised that all I had wanted to do that day was climb a mountain. It was not necessary to summit. The pinnacle was not the end goal. If we stopped now, we wouldn't be giving up. We wouldn't have failed. We wouldn't need to revisit the climb to tick a box. I caught my husband looking at me. "I think we should call it a day," he said. "It's not worth the risk and it's been a great adventure! Let's just appreciate that!"
My heart wasn't even heavy as I nodded in silent agreement. We both knew that over the past two years, we had reached our limit emotionally - we had summited - and we had survived. And now, staring out across the countryside, the magnificence of God's rays was shining in all directions, scattered by the fog droplets still present in the air.
Looking back I now realise that I experienced a peace that day that surpassed all understanding and that was enough for me. Our hope and resilience had been renewed. And so it was that, just beneath the summit, we turned around and made our way home. The summit was never the end goal. The end was wherever He took us, and wherever He chose to lead, we would follow.
We scrambled down the green slope knowing that the ridgeway we had navigated wasn't just a pathway to the top, it was a journey in itself. The climb was the challenge: overcoming our fear, trusting that things would be ok, and accepting that climbing higher would not have changed the outlook significantly. We were blessed with the views and perspectives that we were meant to see and felt reassured that He was still looking after us.
When we arrived home, we found an A4 envelope had been dropped through our mailbox and was lying on the floor in our hallway. On opening it, I pulled out a letter which included photographs of the most beautiful child I had ever seen. He was nineteen months old with a mop of blond hair framing his angelic face. Our social worker wanted to know if were interested. My heart leaped. I was already consumed with love for this child that I had never met. This was the first time I had felt this way about any of the children we had considered. I wiped away the tears running down my face. Less than three months later we would meet him on the seventeenth of January 2013, and he would become our firstborn.
With him and his younger brother, our hearts would finally reside.
And they would be our home for the rest of our lives.
Postscript: I have written about our adoption journey before but wanted to capture this part of our experience from a different angle. It was the first thing that came to mind when I saw the two prompts and they aligned in my head.
This story is in response to The Ink Well's #CNF prompt #57: home as well as to the 5 minute freewrite for the #DailyPrompt: Beneath The Summit.
Header image Dramatic God's Rays by Drashokk
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