Edie Littlefield Sundby - The Mission Walker: I was given three months to live...

The Mission Walker is a marvelous book. Edie Littlefield Sundby writes of her battle against cancer with simple grace and enormous dignity. The journey she takes us onher mission walkis often arduous and at times harrowing, yet theres a spirit of uplift in even the most difficult passages. Sundby turns her mantra of To move is to be alive into a moving meditation on the relationships between courage and faith, endurance and transcendence. I wish the author a long life, but even if she lives to a ripe old age, I think shes created a work that will be here after she is gone.

Randall Sullivan

Creator/cohost, The Miracle Detective, Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN), and writer/contributing editor at Rolling Stone

Edie Littlefield Sundbys account of her amazing trek along the entirety of the California Mission Trail is not only captivating and inspiring but also one heck of an outdoors adventure. Anyone who doubts the capacity of the human spirit to triumph over incredible odds needs either to read this book or walk a few miles with Edie.

Les Standiford

Author of twenty-one books, including the highly acclaimed Water to the Angels: William Mulholland, His Monumental Aqueduct, & the Rise of Los Angeles

This powerful story of determination and faith will stay with you forever. I was so moved to be with Edie on each dusty step of her journey, sharing her cactus wounds and life-affirming moments. We can all learn from this moving and memorable tale of strength, resilience, and spirituality.

Ken Budd

Writer and author of The Voluntourist: A Six-Country Tale of Love, Loss, Fatherhood, Fate, and Singing Bon Jovi in Bethlehem

2017 Edie Littlefield Sundby

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ISBN 978-0-7180-9350-1 (eBook)

Epub Edition June 2017 ISBN 9780718093433

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017939571

Printed in the United States of America

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To my mother, Dora Emma Looney Littlefield (19101989)

I do know that saints exist, and I do know that you are one.

I do know that angels exist, and I do know that you are one.

I do know that God is love, and I do know that you are, too.

I didnt need a mirror to know how I looked.

I was nothing but dry skin clinging to bone. Closer to dust than to life.

I stood at the edge of the cliff and stared at the two-thousand-foot drop in front of me. Missionaries called the valley below El Paraso. Paradise. While the steepness of the descent made my knees shake, it was the cactus that terrified me. There was no clear path down; the entire drop was covered in a thick jungle of Mexican cactus with needles ready to stab me, blind me, or maim me. Some needles were as thick and long as my little finger. Some were curved like fishhooks. Some flowered with other needles, a sunburst of claws waiting to snare me and rip my flesh.

Id faced an abyss before. I had been told that I had three months to live. To gather my family, deal with the fact that I had widespread cancer, and prepare to die.

It was the scariest moment of my life. I stood there, on the precipice of death, and wondered, What can I do? How can I live?

Oh Lord, how much I wanted to live.

I had been miraculously pulled back from that abyss. But now, eight years later, I was not being pulled back from the abyss. A Mexican vaquero was pushing me forward.

The only way out was through.

I turned to Toms.

Cmo? I asked. How?

He just nudged me forward. He wanted me to go first. Alone.

Dear Lord, have mercy on me.

I gazed at the stark beauty of the Baja desert. This was the dream that had gripped my heart. I had planned and prayed to finish what I started two years agowalk the entire 1,600-mile El Camino Real mission trail. If I could do it, I would be the first person since Junpero Serra, the Franciscan priest who was the father of California, had forged his way almost 250 years ago.

The southern portion of El Camino Real winds through the Sierras and one of the hottest, driest deserts in the world. Father Serra was asthmatic and had a lame, cancerous leg. Many people told him he wouldnt make it.

Id heard that feedback as well: Edie, it is a miracle you are still alive. Why put it all at risk to walk a dusty, forgotten mission trail in Mexico? Thats crazy!

But that was precisely the reason I wanted to do it: nothing is more exhilarating than pursuing an improbable goal without regard to consequences.

We all die. Not all of us live.

If Ive learned anything from facing death, it is that life is not meant to be survived. Life is the greatest adventure there is. And why stop your adventuring when you know the end is near? The truth is, we never know when the end will actually come. None of us will avoid it forever. Whats the point in trying?

This story is not about avoiding death but living life.