Steve Fugate: Trail Therapist
A few weeks ago, Eastern Mountain Sports videographer Robert Moses and I were on our way to a shoot when Robert said: “Oh man, I met the most amazing guy today.” Robert then proceeded to tell me about a bear of a man walking along Route 202 carrying a backpack with a giant sign that said ‘LOVE LIFE.’ Thoroughly intrigued, Robert pulled over and talked with him for about a half an hour about who he is and what’s the story behind LOVE LIFE.
Fortunately, Robert had his video camera with him during his conversation, and this is what he heard:
Steve Fugate has plenty of reasons to be angry but instead chooses to LOVE LIFE.
The man Robert met on that day is Steve Fugate and the upbeat message he’s currently sharing with the world comes from an excruciatingly painful place. In 1999, Steve was halfway to his goal of thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail when he received word that his only son had committed suicide.
On his web site, Steve labels the grief he experienced as “indescribable” because “I don’t know how to scream on paper.” Eight months later, Steve returned to the point where he’d left the trail and continued his hike as a tribute to his son. “After completing my “thru-hike” of the Appalachian Trail I adopted a creed; I want no other parent to suffer the horror that I had to go through and I wanted no other young person to miss out on the chance to.. LOVE LIFE.”
It was at that point that Steve decided to take his message around the country – literally. “I came up with the idea of walking across the U.S.A.,” Steve explains on his web site. “I put a sign over my head..”LOVE LIFE” and off I went! I conveyed my message to all I encountered. I felt it so successful, I did it again. Only this time I walked around the United States. Four weeks before he completed his second epic walk, Steve got the call that his 36-year old daughter died of an accidental drug overdose. Steve’s campaign of optimism and hope had been dealt yet another devastating blow.
If placed in Steve’s shoes, I think it’s safe to say that most of us would head down a far less upbeat path than Steve has chosen. I know I wouldn’t and that’s why I have so much respect for Steve’s character and attitude. Clearly, I’m not alone.
In February 2010, Steve’s story aired on National Public Radio’s “Hearing Voices” segment. In September of the same year, Steve was asked by the United States Army to speak to the troops at Fort Richardson and Elmendorf Air Force base in Anchorage and Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks, Alaska “due to the high suicide rate our military is experiencing.”
Steve also boasts more than 2,500 friends on Facebook, where he posts his latest updates and experiences from his current trip across the country. To become a friend of Steve’s on Facebook is to hitch a virtual ride on a free-wheeling, emotional journey of compassion and victory over adversity. Steve unabashedly shares the grief he still carries with him while offering gracious words of support for new friends who have also been stricken by a loved one’s suicide. Steve shares his good times as well as his challenges. No matter how tough the day was, Steve always manages to put a positive spin on his posts which is something a LOT of people on Facebook could learn from.
So if you see a solitary man carrying a weathered backpack with a big LOVE LIFE sign strapped to the top, give him a wave or stop and say “hey” to this truly remarkable human being. Steve doesn’t ask for handouts but he’s not independently wealthy either. He’s grateful for home-cooked meals, fast food and any other fuel to keep his LOVE LIFE engine running.
