Lessons Learned

During and since my brush with death four days ago, I’ve been pondering what the greater lessons are to be learned from all of this. While my coffee was brewing this morning, I had time to contemplate and came up with these lessons learned. They are in no particular order.

Denali

Listen to your dog; she’s right. Whether it’s not walking on thin ice or barking at other dogs, she knows what she’s doing. When she thinks you are the best person in the whole world, you are.  When she loves you more than anyone else, you deserve it. When she wants to be rubbed, it’s because you need her touch.  Listen to your dog.

The people who have wronged you don’t matter. When you only have a couple of minutes left to live, those people won’t even cross your mind. It will be as if they never even existed. Spend your thoughts on those who matter to you, not those who don’t. The people who have wronged you don’t matter.

Make plans for tomorrow. We all need things to look forward to. Weddings. Vacations. Holidays. Keeping irons in the fire propels us forward, making us put one foot in front of the other. They give us a reason to get up each morning, a reason to live another day. Write your upcoming plans on a calendar. Look at them everyday. Get involved. You have a purpose. Make plans for tomorrow.

Road to the wild

Tell someone where you are going, literally and figuratively. Share your desires, goals, and hopes for the future with someone, at least one. By having someone else who knows where you are going, you have created a support system, someone to check in with, to keep you on track and accountable. It’s someone to support you and remind you of the good things coming up. If you never tell anyone where you are going, no one will ever be able to celebrate with you when you get there. No one will ever know when you need encouragement to keep going. No one will ever be able to support you when you get off track. No one will ever know when you need them to throw you a rope. No one will know where to start looking for you when you don’t come home. Tell someone where you are going.

Blood is thicker than water. Family is the most important part of your life. In your last moments, it will become clear. Understand that not all family members are important, and not all important people are family. You know in your heart; you know who has your heart. For me, it’s my daughters, my sister, and my dad. They consume the vast majority of my thoughts and are with me in spirit throughout the day. I’m always planning for the next time I feel their embrace. Hold on to those moments. They are what keep you afloat. Blood is thicker than water.

My classroom

Don’t ever give up on a kid, because they won’t ever give up on you. If you are a teacher, you have that one disruptive student (or more) with whom you have a love/hate relationship. You want so badly to “save” him by helping him to read better, write better, communicate better. You see his potential, but he drives you crazy in the classroom. You know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he has the potential to be an amazing adult, but he desperately needs the academic skills you have to offer and he won’t put forth the effort. You don’t know if it’s because he doesn’t believe in himself, or he really doesn’t think what you have to offer matters. You know it does, so you keep trying to save him. Just know that he knows. He knows. One day, he may be the key to saving you, so don’t ever give up on that kid.

Find your village. You may have heard the saying, “It takes a village to raise a child.” As true as that may be, it also takes a village to make yourself a home. Had I been living on the road system and fallen through the ice on some trail, and if someone had happened along to rescue me, chances are that I would not have known that person and the only people who would have ever known about the event would have been them and me. No one would have known to check on me later that day. No one would have given me a hug on Monday in school. No one would have told me how glad they were that I was alive. I would have been alone with my trauma, but I wasn’t. I have found my village. I am surrounded by people who matter to me and to whom I matter. I live in a place where people talk to one another and help one another, rescue one another and smile at one another. I live in a place where we take care of each other’s kids, and we take care of each other’s pets. We need one another to make the village work. They need me just as much as I need them. Whether you live in a city or on a remote piece of land, you need a village. Stay connected. Be involved. Care and be cared for. If you don’t have one already, find your village.

April and Robbie - to be married 6/18/16

Sarah and Joseph - to be married 9/4/16

You are younger than you think. Whatever your age, you have much left to offer the world. I felt much younger riding home than I did going up the river last Saturday. I’m not nearly as old as I thought. I’m not even half way through my career. I still have a PhD to earn and lives to change, students to teach and curriculum to write, daughters to wed and grandbabies to hold, trails to hike and rivers to cross. You, too, have many things in front of you, whether you are a teenager or an elder. As I tell my students, “Carpe Diem.” You are younger than you think.

View from the teacher's workroom at school.

I’m sure there are more lessons to be learned from this harrowing experience. Perhaps they’ll come to me as I’m standing in the shower tomorrow morning or watching the Iditarod racers cross the finish line in Nome next week. Whether I’m alone or surrounded by people, there are always lessons to be learned.

Unalakleet is at the end of my rainbow.

Unalakleet teacher rescued from river after falling through ice

Unalakleet teacher rescued from river after falling through ice: Kathy Kysar, a high school English teacher at Unalakleet School said she's lucky to be alive after a near brush with death on Saturday.

The Plunge

"So, this is how it ends for me," I said out loud to myself as I felt my arms and legs become too heavy to lift.

The weird thing is that I never felt cold, except for my hands. I never shivered. I did break a freshly-painted nail trying to claw my way out of the icy river. The lack of pain and cold was my primary thought, dreadful acceptance that this was the end.

It all started innocently enough. Beautiful, sunny day. Twenty degrees out and very little wind. Denali was dying for a run, and I was dying to soak up some sun and fresh air. "Dying to..." has a funny ring to it now, about six hours later.

I bundled up in layers - my black long underwear, jeans, thermal shirt with a red buffalo plaid flannel over the top, wool socks (every day of the year up here), wind pants, black winter boots that are a little too fancy for 4-wheeling, my purple parka with the wolf ruff, black fleece neck warmer instead of my usual grey fleece scarf, winter goggles (with pink trim), super-insulated black snowmachine mitts (my trigger finger - right thumb on the 4-wheeler - always gets cold, though), and my rabbit fur Russian hat that keeps my ears especially warm. I was set and Nali was dancing in circles as she watched me get dressed, knowing what all of those layers meant.

I drove right down the main drag through Unalakleet with Nali running by my side. Her tongue was already hanging out by the time we rode across the bumpy river access point behind the AC Store. Because of the past couple of colder days, the overflow was frozen and we headed up the river.

After a couple of miles, Nali was showing signs of being thirsty, wandering off the main trail to the glare ice that had the look of open water but was frozen a foot deep or more. She was slipping and sliding and didn't like that feeling so she started to stick more to the main path with packed snow.

"Don't worry," I told her, "There's some open water up ahead where you can get a good drink before we head back."

I had heard that the open water along the side of the river at this one certain point was were locals would get water for their dry cabins when they were out here in the winter, so I figured the ice around it must be solid enough. I picked up speed, trying to hurry Nali to the water source.

There it was, on the north side of the river. I parked the 4-wheeler on the side of the trail, turned it off and tried to talk Denali into going over there and getting a drink. She acted like it was just more glare ice, so I got off of the machine and started to walk gingerly that way. The ice seemed solid enough and there were a lot of animal tracks going to one certain area by the edge of the water, so I headed that way, thinking that it must be the thickest. She was still leery to come too close, so I squatted down, took off my right glove, and leaned to splash the water so that she could see that it was good to drink. CRASH!

The ice under me gave way and I was in the water. I immediately reached for the ledge from which I had fallen and it gave way again. My chest hurt. My heart pounded. I tried again to pull myself up but my feet were too heavy, and I could not touch bottom. The open water was about four feet wide and 10 feet long, going the length of the river which was flowing pretty good, and carried me easily to the west end of the opening, trying to pull me under the ice. I turned to the side facing the shore. There was only about five feet of windswept ice between me and the shore, but it was slick. I couldn't grab anything. I couldn't get any traction with my wet gloves. I tossed my right glove aside and dug my nails into the ice, but it was like trying to grab a wet mirror.

The current kept pushing me against the west edge of the opening, so I turned my back to it, laid back, using my wolf ruff hood as bouyancy to keep the back of my head downriver and out of the water, and kicked my feet to the surface, sliding first my right foot and then my left up on the snow covered ice shelf. I was able to scoot my butt, back and head up on the shelf just barely before it collapsed under my weight and I was back in the water.

I thought of my cell phone in my pocket but was unsure that my hands would be able to hold it, much less dial for help. Besides, by the time help arrived (I was at least four miles upriver), I'd be dead. I tried the same thing again, leaning back, but by this time, I had been in the water for a couple of minutes and my limbs felt like concrete. I wondered at the lack of cold, just heaviness. It was becoming difficult to see. Even my head was heavy as I took every last ounce of strength I had to scoot myself up sideways on to the ledge again, on my back.

It held. The ledge held. For the first time, I thought I might actually survive, but I still had at least 10 yards to get back to my 4-wheeler and I couldn't move. I couldn't even roll over. Denali was dancing around me. All I could see were the puffy, white clouds slowly moving across the blue sky. I was soaked to the skin, through all of those layers, but I wasn't cold.

"This is where they'll find me," I thought, still wearing my goggles, hat, and neck warmer pulled up over my nose, "frozen solid."

Still, there was no pain, no cold, not a shiver. Just heaviness. My eyelids were too heavy and the world went black.

Then, I heard it. The whine of a snowmachine coming upriver. It was all I could do to reach my water-logged, still-gloved hand to my mouth and pull down the black fleece over it to yell, "Help! HELP!"

I couldn't even raise my arm in the air to signal and the world was still black. Bootsteps came crunching across the snow. I was sliding away from the water hole.

"Ms. Kysar!" my sophomore student, Jaysen, announced to the others, "Are you okay?"

"I am now," I said, slowly. "I wouldn't have been in another minute or two. You almost got a new English teacher," I smiled.


I opened my eyes and asked for help standing up. Two men pulled me to my feet and I removed my goggles so that they could all identify me. That's when the pain hit. I moaned as I walked to the white, extended cab pick-up truck. Jaysen had been on a snowmachine with another teenager and his dad, Norm, had been in the truck with three men who were in town for the weekend basketball tournament. My legs would hardly move as I willed them toward the truck. I couldn't lift my leg so Norm had to help me get into the passenger seat, dripping cold river water everywhere, wind pants starting to freeze.

The ride back to town was warm. I never even shivered. Denali wouldn't lay in my lap because I was so wet. Jaysen drove my 4-wheeler back for me. They made sure I made it into my house before heading back to the school gym.

I cried and cried in the warm shower, water running down my beet red core and thighs. I felt cold to the touch, but still never even shivered. Warm clothes, hot tea and soup, flannel quilt, and episode one of War and Peace brought me back to life.

Word spread quickly through the village and many people have stopped in to see me today or called me on Bonnie's phone. Bonnie, my dear friend and neighbor, left her phone with me so that I could call out if I start feeling bad. My phone is resting comfortably in a jar of rice.

Chris McCandless

Reflecting on the day's events, I did everything wrong. I reminded myself of Christopher McCandless in Into the Wild. When I first read that book, it made me angry. How could someone be so stupid, so unprepared? He did everything wrong! Today, I did everything wrong. I went out alone in an area that is relatively unfamiliar to me, and I didn't tell anyone where I was going. I walked up to open water from the middle of the river. I walked across ice that I thought was stable because it had prints on it, probably fox prints, now that I think back. I didn't have any safety gear with me for a situation like that - not a knife, nothing.

One of the men in the back seat of the truck told me that he's heard of people carrying a screwdriver in each pocket when they head out in the winter, for situations just like that. You can bet that I'll be doing that from now on!

I did everything wrong, but I lived to tell about it. It's truly a miracle that I walked away, unharmed. How do I thank someone who saved my life? If I ever had any doubt before, now I know that my purpose here has not yet been fulfilled. I could easily have been another statistic today. I'm still in shock that I made it out alive, but I'm here in living color. When I was clawing at the ice, trying to pull myself out, I was thinking of how young it would be to die at 48, how fitting for me to go in a situation like that, though, doing what I love. I thought about my daughters' weddings coming up this summer. I thought about my sister. I wondered where my dog was and where she would go. The funny thing is that not once did I think about my dad and about the possibility of seeing him again on the other side. I think it didn't cross my mind because it wasn't my time.


***March 8, 2016 Update***

When I went back to school on Monday, all of my students wanted to hear the story. After telling the story to Jaysen's class, he corrected me. He told me that I never actually made it out of the water that second time. I must have been hallucinating and my body was so numb that I didn't know where I was. He said that the only thing out of the water when they arrived was my head, laying back on the ice shelf. I was submerged from the neck down. My wet, wolf ruff had frozen to the ice, keeping my head above water. The circumstances were even more dire than I knew.

He also told me that, as they approached, they thought Denali was a wolf and one of the men in the truck was loading his gun, getting ready to shoot, when they saw me in the water.

Wow. Just wow.

Dreams Do Come True

Whaleback Mountains

Wednesday afternoon, I had an invitation to go up the river with a new friend. Keep in mind that it's the beginning of March... that means the river is frozen. We went up on 4-wheelers, bundled up and driving right down the middle of the river. So much fun! The beautiful sandy delta gives way to tundra which quickly turns into rolling hills and then mountains. The eight-mile trip took my breath away. So much so that I didn't even pause to take any pictures! However, I will go again soon and for sure take plenty of pics.

Wind/Snow fence where local skiers practice.

We left from the AC store (grocery/hardware/toy/clothing/furniture store), driving over the bank and across an 18-inch-deep overflow (open water on top of the ice) out onto the main river. We sailed past the wind fence that the ski team uses to trap the blowing snow from going all the way to the mountains so that they have plenty of snow to ski on close to town and across the open river (not so open this time of year) with a well-marked, well-traveled snow route (for snowmachines, 4-wheelers, and brave, larger vehicles).

We raced around river bend after river bend... I
had a hard time keeping up because I'm new to the concept of driving a 4-wheeler on what is sometimes glare ice, across 2-3 inch fissures made by the rising and lowering tides. Every once in a while, my guide

Unalakleet River, as seen from a dogsled

would stop to point out a particular cabin or trail of interest. However, no one else lives on the river year-round other than my friend, who lives 8 miles out - accessible only by boat  or 4-wheeler in summer and 4-wheeler or snowmachine in winter. He hasn't owned a vehicle in 30 years, makes his living trapping and running a small-engine repair shop in the village. The outhouse is up a steep bank out in back of the cabin and there is a generator to run lights in the evening. No refrigerator or freezer (that's what the cooler on the porch is for). No running water. No phone service (or internet). A front door that's been torn off of its hinges twice by grizzlies. Quiet. View of the river to die for. Set on a hillside with wraparound porch. No window coverings needed. Simple. Straight forward. Peaceful.

Unalakleet

From as far back as my daughters can remember, I've been telling them that I was going to live out my days in Alaska. I told them that they'd have to bring the grandkids in via airplane and then 4-wheeler or snowmachine to visit me. I had a vision. I had a dream. I had a goal. Holy cow, I'm so close that I can see it! Both of my daughters are getting married this summer. I live in a village on the Bering Sea and have my sights set on living a few miles out in a cabin somewhere. Wednesday, I saw the first evidence that it could really happen. Proof. Confirmation. Affirmation. The fulfillment of my dream is close, closer than ever.

I do want running water in my cabin. I'd have to figure out how to store my meat and veg without a refrigerator, or else have electricity... I'm thinking that solar might be a viable option up here. I'm down to the brass tacks... finding a piece of land, but I've found THE place! Unalakleet!

As I prepare to take my Spring Break from school to watch and participate as an Iditarod volunteer, my dreams move ever closer to reality. It has not been an easy road, but it has been absolutely worth it! Make your bucket list today, right now. If I can make it happen, you can!