Climbing Together, For Those Who Can't Climb Alone
Hi everyone,
You may know my husband's story. About a year ago he broke his leg, and the recovery has been a long road. He signed up for the WWF-Canada Climb for Nature to hold himself accountable, and I signed up beside him. But the more I think about why I'm climbing, the more I see that my reason is a little different from his.
I watched his recovery up close, and one thing stood out. He didn't get better alone. He's resilient, but resilience was really never the whole story. He healed because of the people around him: the doctors, nurses, and physiotherapists who guided him, the family who showed up, the friends who dropped off meals and shared advice so we could rest. Even strangers helped. The bus drivers who waited while I wheeled him aboard. The people who stood up to offer him their seat. None of them had to care, and all of them did.
That is what I keep coming back to. Community turned out to be stronger medicine than anything else, and healing happened in that space between people.
That is why I'm climbing for WWF-Canada. Their work protects species at risk and threatened habitats and tackles climate change, guided by science and Indigenous knowledge, toward a world where nature and people thrive. That work can't be done alone either. It takes relationships, cooperation, and people choosing to show up for something bigger than themselves.
This past summer made that impossible to ignore. Heat waves, melting glaciers, floods, wildfires. We are all feeling climate change speed up. We can adapt and build ways to cope. Animals can't. As their homes disappear, they're trapped in a crisis they can't walk away from, and they need us to be the community that shows up for them.
My husband recovered because people chose to care. I'm asking you to carry that same care a little further, to the wildlife that has no one else to wait patiently, offer a seat, or lend a hand.
With gratitude,
Upandha
