How My Dad's Illness Helped Me Appreciate My Life As an Outdoors Writer

To say I grew up in a frugal household would be an understatement. My dad was a hard worker who put in 40 years for corporate America, and my mom had the unwavering discipline to budget hard enough that my dad’s sole income could put me and my three siblings through college at our state school.

As an adult with a fully developed frontal lobe, I recognize my privilege is borne from my parent’s planning and sacrifice. But as a deeply uncool 90s kid with no ability to see past the next 15 minutes, this meant the shame of reused Ziplock bags, mismatched pencils from the local bank, and unglamorous vacations in the family minivan.

My parents were saving for the future, but middle school Maggie would have traded a fully funded college degree for a fresh pack of Bic mechanical pencils, and probably tossed in my younger sister to sweeten the deal.

Like most snotty children and teenagers, I grew out of this ungrateful mindset. By the time I graduated debt-free with a questionably useful English degree to pursue my dream of working minimum wage as a Yellowstone horseback guide, I was free to fly on planes, eat in overpriced restaurants, and buy all the mechanical pencils my heart desired.

I also finally understood the impact of my parent’s planning. I was the only person in my social circle without college debt, and the impact was obvious in every aspect of my life. Unlike my peers funneled into salaried careers, I was free to suffer through an unpaid local outdoor magazine internship while working as a wedding caterer on the weekends. With no burden of student loan repayment, I could dedicate time and effort to accepting outdoor-industry writing assignments for atrociously low rates, which eventually became enough of a portfolio where the free gear and trips started rolling in.

By the time I was six years into my writing career, I’d crossed the Grand Canyon, skied in Aspen, traversed the Superstition Mountains, and backpacked the Wind River Range, all on branded press trips that childhood Maggie wouldn’t have dreamed of.

At first I found it hard to act natural on these trips. I’d feel like I was playing a role: showing how much I appreciated the opportunities while graciously accepting them, that I both belonged there and didn’t take them for granted. But eventually, I did start to take them for granted. I’d flop around my hotel room for as long as possible before meeting the group in the lobby, an introverted writer preparing for five days of being exhaustingly social in a professional setting. No matter how epic the destination or luxurious the accommodations, it had all started to feel like work.

Meanwhile, my parents were still in New Hampshire putting my youngest brother through college and planning for my dad’s retirement. Then, on the cusp of packing up his office for the last time and perhaps about to indulge in a new pack of Ziplocks, my dad was diagnosed with cancer. Instead of the freedom they’d been saving for, my parents' lives were thrown into a blur of emergency treatments and hospital stays, the specter of cancer removing any reliable plans for the future.

I would FaceTime my parents from press trips during these late-pandemic years, turning in a slow circle so my parents could see the snow-capped mountains behind me or an ombre sunset with the shadows of saguaros stretched across the desert floor.

I’d stare at the view my parents were seeing through their pixelated screen, trying to comprehend it through their eyes. I understood the adage that people can get used to anything, but I didn’t want it to be true for myself. My parents took nothing for granted anymore, celebrating any time my dad was healthy enough to take the minivan on the trips I’d scorned as a child. And here I was on fully expensed media trips, struggling to appreciate the life that was largely made possible from my parent’s own planning and sacrifice.

Then, two years after my dad’s second transplant, after life had largely returned to normal, I was offered two rare press trips with a plus-one. It was an obvious choice. My dad would fly out to join me at Lone Mountain Ranch in Big Sky, and my mom would travel with me to Mohonk Mountain House in upstate New York.

My dad landed in Bozeman that August, meeting me at the airport in hiking boots and a bucket hat. He was the same person he’d been pre-cancer, filled with jolly gratitude and (inexplicably) no hard feelings at the health trials he’d been dealt. We drove the hour south to Lone Mountain Ranch and were shown to our massive private cabin with the wraparound porch overlooking a tumbling creek.

While I tried to portray a carefully balanced persona of appreciative and unaffected, my dad was openly awestruck. He strolled the pea-gravel pathways waving at guests and employees, peppered our horseback guide with dozens of questions, and signed us up for a naturalist trip at a nearby lake.

We paddled to a small island where we wandered around with binoculars glued to our faces until we spotted an osprey nest high in a tree. My dad cheered and pointed, and I felt my jaw unclench and my discomfort dissipate. His openness and unbridled enthusiasm was contagious, and I forgot I was supposed to be acting any certain way. Instead, I stepped back and watched him looking in wonder across the lake as we paddled back for lunch on the dock

My mom’s turn came that spring. She's never been much of a hiker, so I assumed we’d spend most of the time at Mohonk relaxing on the porch when I wasn’t doing Outdoor Writer Things.

But one of the first things she did was flip through the robust activity offerings, pointing to a listing at the bottom. I squinted at the small text: After-Dark Hike: Experience Mohonk’s trails with our naturalist, in the dark without headlamps.

“You want to go hiking? After dark? With no lights?”

“Yes, it sounds great,” she said, like, Why wouldn’t I want to do this? I love doing things I’ve never done in the pitch dark in a place I’ve never been.

We met the group at the edge of the tennis courts as the light faded and zips of lightning bugs appeared in my periphery. Within a few minutes, I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face.

I shuffled my feet to account for my lack of vision, sticking close to my mom. I was honestly waiting for her to turn around. But no, she walked gamely next to me, listening intently as the guide explained the science of seeing in the dark, the type of owls we were hearing, and whether we could expect to feel the flutter of bat wings above. I didn’t have a phone or camera to capture any actual images of the experience, but I have a permanent mental picture of my mom stepping over roots in the middle of the night.

I flew back to Montana a few days later. I didn’t know if my mom knew how much the night hike meant to me, or if my dad understood how his glee at the osprey nest allowed me to revitalize some of my own awe. I didn’t know if they fully comprehended the gratitude I felt for my life, or what it meant to share with them.

I’m pretty clumsy with emotions. While I’ve tried to tell my parents how much I appreciate the life I live, the closest I get is a scrawled thank you note on their birthday cards, a quick recap of my adventures when I show up to holidays in New Hampshire. What they don’t know is that when I walk outside after dark or spot a bird’s nest on my hikes, I also thank them for not just allowing me to live the life I do, but for the ability to appreciate it.