Until you have spent any time in Yellowstone during the winter, you have no idea what cold is. The recent Oscar-nominated film “The Revenant” tells the story of Hugh Glass, a trapper in the 1820s who happened upon a little scuffle with Pooh Bear. The film claims to be based on true events, so when I researched Glass’ actual story, I expected little resemblance to the film.
I was shocked to read that according to historynet.com, almost every detail about the physical hardships depicted in the movie were true. He really was slashed up by a grizzly bear no less than 250 miles away from his small team’s fur-trading post. When his team found him, he looked as if he was seconds from death. After patching his wounds with ripped-up cloth, they waited for him to breathe his last — but he kept breathing.
Glass refused to die. His gashed throat sputtered with every exhale, but he never stopped breathing. Taking a few branches and crafting a splintered stretcher, the men carried Glass with them for two days. Still, through the cold and harsh weather, Glass continued to breathe. Eventually, the team of trappers were forced to leave Glass behind, fearing that the natives in the area would track and kill them for the pelts they were bringing back to the trading post. Two men from the group, John S. Fitzgerald and 19-year-old Jim Bridger, chose to stay back with Glass, being promised a month’s wages to take care of him and, when the time came, to give him a proper burial.
Fitzgerald, driven by the desire for money, grew impatient waiting for his comrade to die. After two days, he convinced young Bridger to take the dying trapper’s weapons and tools, ‘cause hey — the dead won’t need ‘em, right?
But even after being left for dead, Glass refused to die. With each day, he found a way to survive. He had one uninjured arm and one uninjured leg. Through days of digging for roots and searching for wild eggs to eat, Glass learned to crawl — then he learned to walk. Driven purely by the desire for sweet revenge against the two goons who left him for dead, something inside Glass kept him alive. Some say it was the fact that he had claimed to have been in worse shape — in tougher conditions.
I hope I never find myself mauled by a bear 250 miles away from the nearest hospital. After reading about the strength of Glass, I put myself in his shoes, and wondered if I would be able to dig deep enough to find the courage to take one more breath, and then another. I finally came to a conclusion — no. Are you kidding me? No. I would be feeding myself to that bear and asking her to tell my mom that I loved her.
Maybe what kept Glass going was the fact that his goal was not to reach a destination 250 miles away. To Glass, the goal was just to take one more breath, no matter how hard it was — take one more breath. Perhaps our story isn’t about reaching a goal, but rather about finding a way to take one more breath, no matter how difficult the circumstances. That breath might be a sigh of relief or a gasp for air. Yet somehow, we find a way, like Glass, to take one more breath.
