Forget Me Not ~ An interview with Jennifer Lowe-Anker

If you've been following the news recently you probably heard that there was a startling discovery in the mountains of Tibet. The bodies of climber Alex Lowe and filmmaker David Bridges were discovered near the sight of a tragic 1999 avalanch at the base of Mt Shishapangma. After 17 years the legacy of Alex Lowe is continues through the lives his surviving climbing parnter Conrad Anker, his wife Jennifer and his sons Max, Sam and Issac. In his name the Alex Lowe Foundation works support and improve the lives of indigenous people throughout the Himalayan region as well as raise awareness for the importance of avalanche safety and prevention. In memory of Alex Lowe the Joy Trip Project is reposting an interview with Jennifer Lowe-Anker recorded in 2009. Her memoir  Forget Me Not shares the intimate details of her life after having tragically lost her husband, a climber, only to fall in love all over again with another one. Have you have ever thought about why you love the things you love most? And not just things, what about people? How do we come to discover those with whom we fall in love? Through the course of our lives I believe we drawn without even realizing it to things, places and people that are important to us, that make us happy. We bring them into our lives and with them comes great joy. But sometimes, actually more often than not, the thing that you love most is what keeps you apart. Jenny: I think from the beginning I knew Alex was one of those guys that was kind of like a wild bird that you might entice to hold in your hand but you could never really hold on to him. And that was part of his appeal to me. JTP: Jennifer Lowe-Anker was in love with professional climber Alex Lowe. Each with a passion for the outdoors and the wild scenic places of the world, they built a life together of adventure and travel. But with separate careers, Jenny as fine artist, there were many times when the two were apart for long stretches of time while Alex explored Jenny: Interestingly enough that’s what I thought of book from the very beginning. I thought this was not going to be the average climbing story. And I’m not going to be doing a biography but what I really wanted was to show people the person that they loved from the most intimate perspective that I could give away of him because there was such an outpouring of grief and love for Alex at his death. Jenny: Very soon after we got married I decided to leave him and go off in pursuit of a better job because I didn’t like the fact that I wasn’t making good money and I felt like I was spinning my wheels. It was just a situation we were in and I kind of learned from him that time was precious and I wanting to make good use of my time and thinking when we’re together we could do something fun once we made our money and earned it. So I took off and chose to spend a couple of months apart from him working so that we could have a different dream. JTP: Do you have any idea what it was like for him without you? Jenny: I certainly do through his letters. He missed me. We missed each other. And we wrote each other a lot. And some of those letters you get to read. He wrote very avidly. I literally have over a thousand letter from Alex through the time we were together. Jenny: We were together through our letters a lot. He sat down and wrote me nearly every night when were apart. And sometime it was in a journal form and he would spend me like 5 sheets you know over a period of a week or two weeks and little bits of writing that he did everyday to tell me little pieces of what he lived that day and share that with me. And then I would do the same back to him. So we shared the adventures we were having and we shared our caring for each other and concerns and experiencing life. JTP: What was it like on the occasion that he didn’t come back? Jenny: It was very devastating. As much as anyone can say , “You know we’re all going to die.” And you know when you fall in love with someone that s...