LOST

A WIDOW SET OUT TO SCATTER HER HUSBAND’S ASHES IN WASHINGTON STATE’S OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK. SHE SAID A BLESSING AND TURNED TO LEAVE. BUT WHERE WAS THE TRAIL?

- Tom Hallman, Jr.

After meeting at work in 1982, Jean and Jack Geer fell in love and married. They doted on each other for 34 years. In December 2016, Jean walked into their backyard in Port Angeles, Wash., and found Jack crumpled on the ground. Seemingly in perfect health, he had died of a heart attack at the age of 72.

In the months that followed, Jean read books on grief and loss, hoping she would find the will to go on without her husband. There was one task she thought could help: Jack had told Jean that when he died, he wanted half of his ashes scattered in Hawaii, where they used to live, and half in Olympic National Park, about a 25-minute drive from their home. So in March 2017, the 71-year-old widow dutifully flew to Hawaii to disperse the first part of Jack’s remains in the ocean. But she dreaded the thought of parting with him forever and put off spreading the rest of his ashes until several months later, on July 17.

On that day, Jean took the urn holding Jack’s remains, grabbed Yoda, her five-year-old, five-kilogram chihuahua mix, and climbed into her truck. It was 4 p.m. A slight woman, just a bit over a metre and a half tall, Jean wore capri pants, a Hawaiian shirt and canvas espadrilles. It was around 20 C, so no need for a coat on what she expected would be a 30-minute walk. She planned to be home in time for dinner.

With its dramatic peaks and oldgrowth forests, Olympic National Park covers nearly a million acres. Jean was heading for one of Jack’s favourite spots, just off Obstruction Point Road, a 13-kilometre dirt-and-gravel byway. She drove in about five kilometres, pulled her truck over and got out. She grabbed her cellphone and the urn, stashed her purse in the car and entered the woods with Yoda.