First time I met Surain was in the fall the year I graduated from High School. My dad had just died and some good friends had offered me a job to clean their apartment where they rented out some rooms. While cleaning Surain & her friend Rosie came in and rented a room. They said they had just come to town to look up some relatives of Surain. Well that evening we got a phone call to come pick up a distant relative from America who wanted to visit. That was Surain. She was on her way to work in a kibbutz in Israel.

Next time I saw her was in her parent's home where I was visiting. She had just come home from working in the American Embassy in Vienna. She took me around town and loaned me some street cloths to wear since I had just come down from the wilderness of Alaska. She had a really skinny waist and I could remember hardly being able to breath wearing her clothes.

The year after some of my friends from that trip to Alaska asked if I wanted to go to Nepal with them and some others. Sure I said. Sometime later I was writing to Surain and mentioned I was going to hike around Annapurna in Nepal for 4-5 weeks and asked if she wanted to come with. Less than two weeks later I had a letter back saying of course I want to come with. So she came and met the whole group on the airport for the first time. That's how gutsy she was. She was never afraid of unknown things and loving adventures and challenges. She was also the only one not speaking Swedish in the group but that didn't bother her. On the airport there she met Robert for the first time and during the flight to India Robert managed to switch places and to sit next to Surain and the start of their life together unknown at the time. Robert took us around to a lot of places in Katmandu that we probably wouldn't have seen otherwise. We had a blast. Surain & I were in a different hiking group than Robert so we trekked opposite each other for the next four weeks meeting only on top of the pass Thorong La over 17,000 ft for a brief moment.

On that trip Surain also saved my life. I had slipped off a narrow path with around a 300 ft. drop and landed in a small tree. Surain while screaming was able to pull me up. I was doubled over in cramp for a day after that and I can only imagine how Surain's muscles felt. When we reached the village at the end of our hike a bus went by and somebody screamed " Tell Surain to hop on the next bus and meet Robert in Katmandu, to fly to India" and so she did. And from there their love story started. She loved adventures and challenges and was always curious and busy. In that way I feel she was a lot like her mom.

In 1978 Robert&Surain married and four years later Ed and I had fallen in love and married. We did a lot of things together outside of family. Had several mutual friends both here and in Sweden and Surain and Ed were very close. Then we had kids and less free time to do things. Now when our kids have reach the age of 15 and older we had hoped to start doing things with both Surain and Robert more often. Maybe hike, joining them for part of a trip that they often wanted their friends to do etc. our kids felt the same way.

Now she is no more and the chance is gone. We'll miss her immensely, her enthusiasm, laughter, and go get it attitude. Her love for knowledge, cultures and her strength and how she even at the end put all of us at peace. I wished all along that I could have had a magic wand and the outcome could have been different. But we'll always carry her memories in our heart, and someday we'll be able to more easily laugh and think Surain would have liked that or done it this way. She will never be forgotten.