Forget Me Not: A Memoir

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The proper thing to do will be to take care of his body according to local practices,” says Anker. “They’re still frozen into the ice.” My biggest worry was that Alex might not be fairly represented, and that he and Conrad would be vilified for their passion for climbing, which would be their life,” Jenni told me recently. (She’s fully on board now, accompanying her son to festivals and screenings.) Unlike the remains of climbers that are sometimes found high on Everest, the bodies of Lowe and Bridges are in a place where they can be recovered. (The body of guide Scott Fischer, a casualty of the 1996 storm on Everest that spawned Into Thin Air, remains on the mountain in line with the wishes of his family.)

There’s a scene in Torn where Max interrogates his mom about falling in love with Anker so soon after Alex died. It’s tense to watch, and it strips away any sense that Max is going to be delicate or easy on his subjects. “I was surprised, and thought, How dare you ask me that?” Jenni says. “But I was able to answer because I’m just as forthright as he is.” Though Max knows it’s a fault, he is acutely aware of how others perceive him and his work. He read and internalized every review of Torn. “As an artist, you’re constantly critiquing your work,” he says. “Art is something you create for yourself, but then it becomes something that belongs to other people, and you have to learn to let it go.” On the one hand, all these emotions come up, and it’s like we have to go through all of this again. But on the other hand, at least for me, it’s like, “Wow, Alex really did die.” Because for me, there was just this big cloud of snow dust, and then he was gone. There was never a body to verify it. So now there’s this sense of closure to it. I think this is where we all want to be with it. What are the plans?The main event that night was the passing of the team captaincy, from Anker to Hilaree Nelson. The athletes assembled under the tent and laughed and hooted along as a procession of them stood to toast and roast Anker. Lowe-Anker, at her first-ever athletes’ summit, made a few remarks on the courage and forbearance of climbers’ mates—the loved ones at home. Humbled and a little tongue-tied, Anker stood and introduced Tate, who, adopting a priestly stance, said, “Hilaree, come here. You stand here. Conrad here.” Max and Bare were friends long before the film was made, so trust had already been established. “I asked Max to direct the film because I felt like it needed someone who had experienced trauma, but different from my own,” Bare says. “We went into it with the goal of making something that required us to be honest with each other on and off camera.” Gradually Jennifer and Conrad Anker started developing feelings for each other. Later they exchanged wedding vows on April 6, 2001. JENNIFER LOWE-ANKER EDUCATION

We will go over there and retrieve the bodies. They’re not completely out of the ice, but I think things might change in the next five or six weeks before we can get over there. We’ll put on crampons, and go up the glacier, and retrieve the bodies. Then, we’ll find a place to have a cremation, a pyre according to local customs. This is what both Alex and David’s parents want, and they believe this is the right thing to do for both of them. Do you have a favorite memory of Alex that you could share? Max Lowe’s “Torn” is a heart-rending, sentimental gift from the son of a father he never knew to himself. I’d love to say it’s a gift from Max Lowe to Alex Lowe, but it’s not. It’s a gift from Max Lowe to Max Lowe, well-acquainted with his grief and running out of patience. Manoah Ainuu of Bozeman, who now climbs professionally, keeps his skills sharp on outings to Hyalite Canyon with his friend and mentor Conrad Anker. (Jason Thompson/For The Washington Post) Jennifer Lowe-Anker published a memoir, Forget Me Not in 2008, that recounts her life shared with Lowe, his death and the life she continued with Anker. Forget Me Not won the National Outdoor Book award for literature in 2008. [10] Legacy [ edit ]Lowe and Bridges had been on the mountain as part of nine-person team when they got lost on a 1999 expedition, which planned to first climb Shishapangma and then descend it on skis, in what they hoped would be the first US ski descent of an 8,000m peak. The two were buried and killed when an ice cliff collapsed above them as they crossed a glacier, with a third companion, Conrad Anker - whose exploits were documented in the recent film Meru - surviving. Mr Anker suffered broken ribs and a dislocated shoulder. Max Lowe’s film examines how the family coped with Alex’s death, then and now. In some of the early interviews, Isaac asks his big brother why he wants to make this movie, and possibly reopen old wounds. What the film reveals —through archival footage, Jenni reading Alex’s letters, and interviews with his mom, his brothers and Anker — is that some wounds never heal until they are opened up and examined. Anker was there with them, traversing an open snow-covered slope, when the mountain came to life and unleashed its full fury. Miraculously, Anker survived. When the dust settled, however, Lowe and Bridges were gone. OUTSIDE: Jenni, when we wrote about Conrad in 2001, you declined to speak with us. What’s different now? I just finished reading Jennifer Lowe-Anker's brilliant memoir, Forget Me Not. I stumbled across it because I am such a huge Jon Krakaur fan, and found that he had contributed to the Forward. I am not, nor have I ever been a climber, but it has always fascinated me, so I thought I would give this book a try.

It was the first time I could see how much Conrad was still dealing with the survivor’s guilt around Alex’s death, and imposter syndrome,” said Max. Plans called for Lowe and Anker to be part of the team that would ski down, to become the first Americans to ski down from the summit of an 8,000-meter peak; while Bridges was part of a three-man film team that was to shoot an NBC documentary of the expedition for The North Face. Lowe commented: While Jenni and her sons faced the absence of a husband and father, Alex's longtime climbing partner, Conrad Anker, who survived the accident that killed Lowe, faced his own grief and survivor's guilt. Jenni and Conrad gradually, and unexpectedly, found solace in each other.Late one evening, a week after Kennedy’s suicide, Anker called Tim Tate, a psychotherapist in Bozeman. Anker and Tate often went for hikes, and talked about their lives. Tate had helped him and the Lowes work through some dark periods, often marked by the reverberations of what Anker had come to identify as his survivor’s guilt—the nagging feeling that he was living someone else’s life.