A view from Bellavista in the Swiss National Park

It was time for my Uncle Alec to leave this earthly life behind. He had died twenty months previously, three and a half months after being diagnosed with incurable cancer, and had donated his body to medical science. I had said a prayer for his soul and for our family but, as I sat on a bench at the Offenpass in the Swiss National Park, looking at the silver-tinged clouds while Alec’s brief funeral ceremony was taking place in Wales, I felt a disquieting absence. This was rather different to the day he died when, as I was walking over the Pont de la Machine in Geneva, I had paused for a couple of minutes, entranced by the breathtaking sight of a band of clouds streaked with silver with a bright light shining through them.

Earlier in the day, near the Spöl river, I had abandoned my attempt to hike up to the Murter pass from Vallun Chafuol and, after a short bus journey, I decided to set off from Zernez (1474m) to get as close as possible to the Val Cluozza.

As I climbed up through the dense forest I was consumed with melancholy as I thought about my kind, thoughtful, honest, talented, comical, entertaining uncle with his contradictory and slightly rebellious nature. I also wondered where I would have been on holiday had the COVID-19 pandemic, with all its inherent travel restrictions and hurdles, not still been raging.

Ever since my early teens, when I started going for walks around the Isles of Scilly on my own, it has been quite normal for me to set off on a solitary hike. However, today I felt afraid and incredibly vulnerable. One month before my uncle had died, I had fallen on a rocky path during a solo trek in Corfu and had to have seven stitches to my upper left shin. Today, despite the peacefulness of the spruce forest that surrounded me, the invigorating scent of pine and enchanting views of the dramatic Cluozza valley lined with larch trees, the trauma of my stumble in Greece and the loss of my uncle was weighing me down and I simply could not shake off the sadness. I really did not want to be on my own, but stuck to my vow to travel and have adventures regardless of whether or not I had anyone to enjoy them with. I also recalled that some of the worst loneliness I have ever experienced has been when in the company of others. I dug my recently-purchased hiking poles into the ground and leaned on them exaggeratedly, as if they were essential for survival. They certainly make me feel steadier. I tried to think rationally rather than fearfully, take each step at a time, and absorb the cleansing forest air.

Uncle Alec and I had discussed the realities of love, friendship and loneliness on several occasions over three decades (with our perspectives changing according to our circumstances, and how much wine we had consumed!). When I was a teenager he told me ‘A friend is someone who you haven’t seen or had any contact with for years and years and, when you see them walking along the pavement the other side of the street from you, you are so pleased to see each other again that you spontaneously cross the road to greet each other’. At the time I thought to myself ‘Uncle Alec doesn’t know anything about life’ (something his worst critics, many close family members, would probably have agreed with on occasion!). However, as I got older and, especially before social media made it easier to maintain direct connections, I was grateful to discover that there was a profound truth in Alec’s anecdote about friendship. I continue to be delighted at friendship which, thankfully, transcends the time-consuming demands of family responsibilities and commitments, a full-time job, attempts to achieve life goals, geographical distance and a need to engage in leisure pursuits and hobbies which are indispensable for health and sanity.

Buoyed by my memories of debates and laughs with my audacious uncle, and by a furious wish to defy grief, I managed to get to Bellavista (2039m). Surprised at having had the stamina to climb up 565m, I lingered on a bench, swigged water and savoured the views trying not to think about the hike down, and telling myself that if I had got up safely I could get down safely, and that I could go as slowly as needed. I was just leaving the bench when a Swiss girl emerged from the forest behind me, full of enthusiasm for the Murtaröl (where she had descended from) and cheerfully asking me where I was going. It turned out that she was also heading for Zernez, and she introduced herself as Paola and asked if I wished to walk with her. I gladly accepted the invitation, told Paola about my fall in Corfu (showing her the scar on my shin!), and explained that I was feeling anxious (without mentioning anything about grief).

So, Paola and I hiked down through the forest together at an easy pace, discussing (in English) the dangers and joys of solo hiking, the therapeutic effects of nature, the value of solitude, opportunities we’ve seized, difficult decisions and mistakes that we’ve made, disappointments and heartbreak, the helpfulness of psychology books (I wonder if we’ve read the same ones — some sound much cooler in other languages!), the occasional challenges of human interaction, what we worry about, the surprises of life and things we dream of. Although my Uncle Alec had an insatiable need to be noticed he also had an irrepressible wish to engage with most people he encountered, and it felt appropriate to be having such an open conversation with a complete stranger on the day of his funeral.

Sixteen months since the COVID-19 pandemic reached Europe, with the enforced isolation of working from home, minimal wine bar outings and convivial dinners, and no wine-tasting, music or summer festivals, cinema trips, Choral Evensong, flights abroad to revisit favourite places or discover new ones, or reunions with family or friends in other countries, and a general deprivation of the human company that I used to enjoy before the pandemic, I had found a friend in the forest — a friend who my uncle would have approved of. In a world in which a seemingly solid friendship can be ended by a malicious invention, in which deliberate creation of drama can be considered loyalty, in which reluctance to speak on Zoom can be misinterpreted as apathy for someone’s well-being, and in which overfamiliarity and opportunism are often mistaken for genuine friendliness, it was liberating to chat spontaneously to someone knowing that no trouble, and only healing, could come from our exchange.

As Paola and I approached the edge of the forest, before the path widened to lead down to Zernez, we came across a couple with a camera and binoculars who pointed out the habitat of a woodpecker that they’d just seen in a tree the opposite side of the track. We all stood for a few minutes watching, waiting, listening, hoping to see the woodpecker pop out. The woodpecker did not reappear but, with that excitement and the surprise of the beautiful encounter that I had experienced, the absence that I had felt earlier in the day had become a Presence.