Hello, Nancy,
My brother, Chuck Martin, forwarded your email expressing your gratitude and feelings finding flowers for Chet on the road above Castle Valley. I am so glad the flowers gave your heart a lift in that time of grief. Yes, I did know Chet. He was extremely special to me, and had a long history of being very kind and supportive to each of my siblings over the years as well. Chet and I used to dance and talk together and were friends.
I want you to know that I was not (by pure chance) one of the people who responded to the accident, so when I found out it was Chet I went up to the place where he died to see what the place could tell me. A bit of time had passed between when I suspected it was Chet and when someone in Vermont could confirm it. This was a thread of grace through the story as I do not know how I would have recovered if I had "arrived on scene" and found Chet. He had not told me he was in the area, and although I also shed some tears that I was not able to be there for him just then, well, paradoxically I just can hardly imagine if I had been.
But also...it put me and the flowers there at just that fortuitous moment to give you something you really needed. This is a magical coincidence. It seems like a kindness of the universe.
In any case, I realized while standing there that that is the exact spot where, when one is coming down off the mountain, the view suddenly opens up and catches the spirit by surprise with a stunning vista that just takes the breath away. I imagined then that Chet was swooping down the mountain riding just as fast as he could (exactly as he was famous for - my brother, Doug, called it "doing a Chet") and lifted his head when that view opened up so gloriously and was grinning his (equally famous) grin when the cattle guard (or some other thing) caused his bike to go out of control. Although I know this is a poignant and risky image to share with you, I am sharing it because the impression was so clear to me and so "like Chet". I think Chet had a soaring of the heart just at the last moments of his life. I sincerely hope that this image touches your heart in a gentle way, and does not cause you any further suffering or sadness.
Other mourners to whom Chet was extremely important have come to Castle Valley to visit the site. I also put a few words in the Moab paper calling attention to Chet as a person, specifically because I wanted to dispel my own fear that his passing would be impersonal, or marked by any form of obscurity.
Your brother was an inspiration to many and a joy to be around. He really, really was.
- Rebecca Martin
