Just Short of the Summit
We must always be aware that our ultimate destination lies not in the realization of our dreams in this world, but our greatest climax lies beyond the grave in the abode we finally take up in the Afterlife.
A veteran of World War I, Maurice Wilson had always dreamt of standing on “the roof of the world”—on the top of Mount Everest (at 29,028 feet, the highest peak in the world). His keenness to realize this ambition was so great that he walked out of a successful family business, spent all his money on a second-hand aeroplane and flew six thousand miles from England to India, finally touching down at Purnea on the borders of Nepal. Then, having been refused permission to proceed beyond this point in his aircraft, he sold it and approached Everest through Darjeeling and Tibet.
On the last leg of the journey, he carried only a small tent, some rice, an automatic camera, and a few other small items. He planned to stand on the summit on his 36th birthday, April 21, 1934, but when he was just a few days away from making this birthday the most memorable one ever, he was overtaken by a violent Himalayan storm and was forced to descend to his previous base. One year later, the famous Sherpa guide, Tenzing Norgay, found Wilson’s body and, next to it, his diary, in which he had written, “only 13,000 feet more to go. I have the distinct feeling that I will reach the summit on April 21.” He had hoped that his automatic camera would record his moment of triumph for posterity. However, that moment never came. Moreover, no one could determine the actual cause of his death.
It was the first serious attempt to conquer Mount Everest, and it had failed. The saga of Maurice Wilson, divested of its elements of high drama, is if we could but realize it, the saga of many of the world’s less illustrious, less daring millions. Most of us, in a lower key, strain after some cherished dream, some gilded ambition, full of thoughts of the happiness that awaits us at some imagined point in the future. However, death can come at any moment and may forestall the ripening of well-laid plans. It is an eventuality that many of us completely lose sight of in the struggle to achieve an ambition. However, it is an ever-present reality we must prepare ourselves for, sooner or later. We must never lose our awareness that our ultimate destination lies not in the realization of our dream world in this world but in the abode we finally take up in the Afterlife. We shall be better able to come to terms with the anti-climactic nature of human existence if we keep our minds firmly fixed on the notion that the greatest climax lies beyond the grave.
