Much of this blog post comes from a letter that was written to me by Heath Michelson - the hunter Jeff was with during his accident.
When the media puts out a headline like "Man Falls Off Cliff and Dies", it isn't exactly a peaceful title. It paints a gruesome picture and I have found that it can be quite upsetting to the soul. But this wasn't how Jeff went - it wasn't a horrible story, there was no suffering - it was a story full of absolutely incredible tender mercies and a peaceful passing. I truly believe that the only way to have it make sense in my mind is to believe that there is a plan. It all just went too perfectly to not be part of a plan.
I felt a deep hurt for those who were Jeff's friends and acquaintances. As his wife I was given so much time to spend with him, to hold his hand, to stroke his hair. But I know that many people who were close with Jeff at one time or another were not given that same opportunity. So I hope that with this story you can find peace, and that you can find comfort in knowing that Jeff was being prepared to go. Myself and many others firmly believe this.
It was all part of a plan!
This picture was taken shortly before Jeff passed. We all felt as if Jeff was giving us the "thumbs up" to show that he was doing alright! He truly passed doing what he loved!
It was Jeff's last hunt and he had told me I could be expecting him home by November 22.
So many of our texts in that last month had consisted of him telling me how excited he was to come home and see me! We had survived the past four months of Jeff being gone at the territory and we were so excited to be united again.
On November 7, I sent Jeff a text message wishing him safe travels back into the territory and told him to go out with a "bang"! He sent me back, "lol, no pun intended". At the time I thought hunting was clearly on his mind, but now that I look back, I wonder if he had even the faintest clue of the imprint he would leave behind when he left.
That night he also sent me a text to say "Happy Anniversary Eve!" It was adorable.
November 8, 2014 was our one year anniversary. He had his sisters pick up 2 dozen pink and white roses for me.
November 9, he texted me in the morning to tell me that they were going on an afternoon hunt. He told me that he missed me and sent me smiley faces with a text that said we were starting year two of our marriage.
November 10. He told me he loved me and that he was counting down the time until he could see me again.
November 10, 2014 at 2:30 pm..."Love you" was the last text I ever received from Jeff. We weren't having a conversation. It was just a random text. How lucky am I to have the last words of my husband, of 1 year and 2 days be "Love you". It doesn't get much better then that.
Around 3:30 my dad had posted on Facebook that Jeff and Heath had a billy down. I wasn't worried that Jeff hadn't texted me. So many times it had been hours between texts, sometimes 12 hours in between and then all of a sudden I would have a text that said, "Hey babes, billy down and we had to haul it in the dark. Almost died and it was crazy steep, but we made it." If I had a dollar for every text of that kind...I would be a rich woman. This was no different, I went to sleep and when I hadn't received a text in the morning I was starting to get a little worried but quickly reminded myself that he would text when he was safely back at camp. He always did.
Heath's letter to me was so amazing. I was so overjoyed to hear about Jeff's day. To read about the things that he had said and done. When he passed one of the things that had crossed my mind was the desire to know how Jeff was feeling that day, was he having a good day, or did he sleep on a rock and have a sore back? All these little questions I so badly wanted answers to. I feel like Heath's letter did an amazing job of giving me the answers.
Here is a look into what happened on that day.
"The day he passed I had asked him why I was lucky enough that Derrick gave me him as a guide. He just shrugged his shoulders and gave me some funny comment about Derrick and how lucky I was that I did get him as a guide. He could sure hike and climb those mountains. It was all I could do to keep up with him. He never had anything negative to say and was always positive about everything. Monday we had planned on packing a tent, sleeping bag, and food for 3-4 days and going up the Killdalley Valley. Monday morning came around and Jeff decided he didn't want to go that way that day. He wanted to hunt up the Kemano River and go to the Killdalley Valley Tuesday. So that's what we did. Jordan and Brett (the other guide and hunter) were already down in the Kemano that morning. About half way down the road to where the accident happened, Jeff had spotted a Billy way down the valley and on top of the mountain. That is where we were going. We were going to get that Billy. He said it was a monster, so off we went. When we got to the spot Jordan and Brett were already there looking at another Billy. We spotted our Billy again, so we parted ways, each going after a Billy. Straight up Jeff and I went talking about life and what he was going to do when he was done guiding. He wasn't quite sure what that was. He had lots of ideas but nothing figured out. The terrain was brutal. It was steep, wet, covered in moss, slippery and steep again. There were lots of cliff faces and washes around from waterfalls and avalanches. We worked our way up the mountain making comments to each other as we would get to a difficult spot that if either one of us slipped or lost a hand or a foot hold, we would end up down the mountain and it would not be pretty. We both knew what we were doing, as far as the danger of the mountain. When we were a couple hundred yards above tree line Jeff motioned to hurry up. Monster Billy! Monster Billy! He said pointing straight up on top of more cliffs ahead. I hurried and got my gun out of my pack and the monster Billy was down. It fell down the cliff face opposite of us. We could not see if from where we were, so we worked our way around the cliff through some ugly washes and found the goat 300-400 yards down the mountain from where I had shot it. It was in a steep wash. We were lucky it had stopped where it did. The wash was too steep to work in so we moved the Billy through the wash to a safer spot. This is where Jeff texted Derrick "Monster Billy down!!" We talked about what we were going to do. We either had to spend the night on the mountain and take the goat down in the morning or go down and unload our packs at camp and come back the next morning. So we skinned the goat down as much as we could and headed down the mountain at about four o'clock. Because the goat fell on the other side of the cliff that we came up on, we decided to go down the mountain a different way. As we were down the mountain a ways. Jeff dropped a pin on the satellite grid so we could come back up the mountain the way we were going down, because it seemed to be a better way that the way we went up. Not too much farther down the mountain we came into several cliffs and washes. We came to a spot where there were two old washes that had solid rock faces that had moss of them. We decided to try going across them. We both had rope in our packs and talked about whether we should tie off to each other as there was nothing else to hold on to or tie off to but rock and moss. We decided that if we were tied to each other we both may fall. We were both through the first wash and working on the second one. We were working our way through them feet first, holding on with our hands above our heads and facing the rock. Jeff's backpack had an aluminium frame. I also remember he didn't have his waist strap done up on the pack. He had it like that for most of the day. As we were going through this wash facing the rock I heard the aluminium frame hit the rock. I turned around and saw Jeff sliding down the wash and over a drop. I could hear the aluminium pack hitting the rocks but could not see Jeff or the pack. All I could see was his orange toque about 50 yards below me on the side of a wash."
To be continued...
It was Jeff's last hunt and he had told me I could be expecting him home by November 22.
So many of our texts in that last month had consisted of him telling me how excited he was to come home and see me! We had survived the past four months of Jeff being gone at the territory and we were so excited to be united again.
On November 7, I sent Jeff a text message wishing him safe travels back into the territory and told him to go out with a "bang"! He sent me back, "lol, no pun intended". At the time I thought hunting was clearly on his mind, but now that I look back, I wonder if he had even the faintest clue of the imprint he would leave behind when he left.
That night he also sent me a text to say "Happy Anniversary Eve!" It was adorable.
November 8, 2014 was our one year anniversary. He had his sisters pick up 2 dozen pink and white roses for me.
November 9, he texted me in the morning to tell me that they were going on an afternoon hunt. He told me that he missed me and sent me smiley faces with a text that said we were starting year two of our marriage.
November 10. He told me he loved me and that he was counting down the time until he could see me again.
November 10, 2014 at 2:30 pm..."Love you" was the last text I ever received from Jeff. We weren't having a conversation. It was just a random text. How lucky am I to have the last words of my husband, of 1 year and 2 days be "Love you". It doesn't get much better then that.
Around 3:30 my dad had posted on Facebook that Jeff and Heath had a billy down. I wasn't worried that Jeff hadn't texted me. So many times it had been hours between texts, sometimes 12 hours in between and then all of a sudden I would have a text that said, "Hey babes, billy down and we had to haul it in the dark. Almost died and it was crazy steep, but we made it." If I had a dollar for every text of that kind...I would be a rich woman. This was no different, I went to sleep and when I hadn't received a text in the morning I was starting to get a little worried but quickly reminded myself that he would text when he was safely back at camp. He always did.
Heath's letter to me was so amazing. I was so overjoyed to hear about Jeff's day. To read about the things that he had said and done. When he passed one of the things that had crossed my mind was the desire to know how Jeff was feeling that day, was he having a good day, or did he sleep on a rock and have a sore back? All these little questions I so badly wanted answers to. I feel like Heath's letter did an amazing job of giving me the answers.
Here is a look into what happened on that day.
"The day he passed I had asked him why I was lucky enough that Derrick gave me him as a guide. He just shrugged his shoulders and gave me some funny comment about Derrick and how lucky I was that I did get him as a guide. He could sure hike and climb those mountains. It was all I could do to keep up with him. He never had anything negative to say and was always positive about everything. Monday we had planned on packing a tent, sleeping bag, and food for 3-4 days and going up the Killdalley Valley. Monday morning came around and Jeff decided he didn't want to go that way that day. He wanted to hunt up the Kemano River and go to the Killdalley Valley Tuesday. So that's what we did. Jordan and Brett (the other guide and hunter) were already down in the Kemano that morning. About half way down the road to where the accident happened, Jeff had spotted a Billy way down the valley and on top of the mountain. That is where we were going. We were going to get that Billy. He said it was a monster, so off we went. When we got to the spot Jordan and Brett were already there looking at another Billy. We spotted our Billy again, so we parted ways, each going after a Billy. Straight up Jeff and I went talking about life and what he was going to do when he was done guiding. He wasn't quite sure what that was. He had lots of ideas but nothing figured out. The terrain was brutal. It was steep, wet, covered in moss, slippery and steep again. There were lots of cliff faces and washes around from waterfalls and avalanches. We worked our way up the mountain making comments to each other as we would get to a difficult spot that if either one of us slipped or lost a hand or a foot hold, we would end up down the mountain and it would not be pretty. We both knew what we were doing, as far as the danger of the mountain. When we were a couple hundred yards above tree line Jeff motioned to hurry up. Monster Billy! Monster Billy! He said pointing straight up on top of more cliffs ahead. I hurried and got my gun out of my pack and the monster Billy was down. It fell down the cliff face opposite of us. We could not see if from where we were, so we worked our way around the cliff through some ugly washes and found the goat 300-400 yards down the mountain from where I had shot it. It was in a steep wash. We were lucky it had stopped where it did. The wash was too steep to work in so we moved the Billy through the wash to a safer spot. This is where Jeff texted Derrick "Monster Billy down!!" We talked about what we were going to do. We either had to spend the night on the mountain and take the goat down in the morning or go down and unload our packs at camp and come back the next morning. So we skinned the goat down as much as we could and headed down the mountain at about four o'clock. Because the goat fell on the other side of the cliff that we came up on, we decided to go down the mountain a different way. As we were down the mountain a ways. Jeff dropped a pin on the satellite grid so we could come back up the mountain the way we were going down, because it seemed to be a better way that the way we went up. Not too much farther down the mountain we came into several cliffs and washes. We came to a spot where there were two old washes that had solid rock faces that had moss of them. We decided to try going across them. We both had rope in our packs and talked about whether we should tie off to each other as there was nothing else to hold on to or tie off to but rock and moss. We decided that if we were tied to each other we both may fall. We were both through the first wash and working on the second one. We were working our way through them feet first, holding on with our hands above our heads and facing the rock. Jeff's backpack had an aluminium frame. I also remember he didn't have his waist strap done up on the pack. He had it like that for most of the day. As we were going through this wash facing the rock I heard the aluminium frame hit the rock. I turned around and saw Jeff sliding down the wash and over a drop. I could hear the aluminium pack hitting the rocks but could not see Jeff or the pack. All I could see was his orange toque about 50 yards below me on the side of a wash."
To be continued...
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