Backpack of belief
“The testing of your faith develops perseverance,” (James 1:3).
✝
The package showed up months after Christmas, long after Henry Tanner stopped expecting it. Inside was a backpack - one he’d asked for when he was just another college student dreaming of adventure. But by the time it arrived, adventure was the last thing on his mind.
His doctor had already told him he might never walk again. His left side, once strong, was now paralyzed, a constant reminder of the stroke that nearly took everything from him. The future he imagined, one filled with movement, independence, and possibility, felt far away.
And yet, here it was. The backpack. A symbol of the life he thought he’d lost, now sitting in front of him as if daring him to pick it up.
✝
Tanner grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina, and was the kind of guy who never had any trouble making friends. In high school, he was social, outgoing, and maybe a little wild - always up for a good time, always surrounded by people.
“For the first 20 years of my life, being cool was my religion,” Tanner said.
But beneath the fun, he lacked a clear sense of direction. When he started at the College of Charleston in 1992, the same attitude followed him. He partied, skipped classes, and coasted through his freshman year without much thought for the future.
Looking back, he’s honest about why he wanted to go to college: “Good-looking girls and a lot of parties.”
“I felt like I was very much without direction for a while and went to college without any sense of purpose,” Tanner admitted.
After his freshman year, his father stepped in and pushed him to make a change. That summer, Tanner signed up for an Outward Bound trip in Montana, advertised as an “outdoor education program.”
And boy, did he get an education. For weeks, he camped out in the rugged wilderness with a small group, living off the land, navigating the terrain, and facing challenges that tested both his physical endurance and mental strength. By the time he made it back home, he was in better shape and, for the first time, actually motivated.
“I really had a life-changing experience,” Tanner said, reminiscing. “It made me a whole lot more focused.”
When he returned to school for his sophomore year, he started exercising, taking school seriously, and had more drive. When his parents asked him what he wanted for Christmas that year, he had one simple request: a backpack.
December 25, 1993: no backpack.
January 1994: no backpack.
February 1994: still no backpack.
By March 1994, the backpack was a forgotten thought in Tanner’s mind.
But then, on March 3, 1994, everything changed.
✝
Wrestling around with his roommate in their Charleston apartment, he twisted his neck around and felt a little funny, but didn’t think much of it and went about his day.
A few hours later, he ran out to do some errands, driving down Charleston’s haphazard streets when he hit a pothole.
The entire left side of his body went numb.
“From my ears to my toes, it felt like someone had hit my funny bone,” Tanner remembered. “I couldn’t hear very well.”
Dazed and confused, he made it back to his apartment, convinced he was fine and just needed to shake it off. He splashed cold water on his face, hoping to wake up his sluggish left side.
“I remember turning on the faucet and the noise was just excruciating to my brain,” Tanner said, grimacing.
Still unaware of what was happening, he laid down and passed out.
Hours later, he woke up.
Drenched in sweat.
Tried to get up.
Couldn’t.
Rolled off the bed.
Thud.
Tried to stand.
Collapsed.
His body wasn’t responding. Something was wrong.
✝
By the time he arrived at the hospital, Tanner was half-laughing, thinking this would all pass in a few hours. But the moment the doctors heard what happened, they rushed him to the ER.
He didn’t know it at the time, but when he twisted his neck earlier, a blood vessel tore. The impact from hitting the pothole shot a blood clot to his brain, triggering a stroke.
That’s when reality hit. A stroke?
The laughter stopped. Panic set in. One moment, he was walking, talking, living an exciting life. But now, his body betrayed him. The weight of it all came crashing down.
“I went from laughing to crying,” he said. “I was just scared that I was gonna die.”
He felt powerless. But in that moment of fear, he reached for something bigger.
“It was really the first time in my life that I just called out to God, asking for his help and to save me,” Tanner said, voice breaking.
✝
Tanner spent a week in the hospital in Charleston before being transferred to Rex Hospital in Raleigh for further treatment. After spending two weeks there, he was determined to get his life back on track.
In the beginning, it was hard to imagine what that would even look like.
“I was in pretty bad shape,” Tanner remembered.
Walking, moving, standing - everything felt like an impossible task. But impossible wasn’t a word Tanner was willing to accept.
That summer, he moved back down to Charleston. MUSC Hospital became his second home, treating rehab like a full-time job. Physical therapists pushed him to the limits, slowly rebuilding his strength and mobility. By June, he was in and out of a wheelchair, able to hobble around pretty well. But still, some days, he fell. Some days, he felt like he wasn’t getting anywhere.
Every morning, Tanner woke up half-expecting everything to be back to normal. He lay in bed, waiting for his left side to move the way it used to and for the numbness in his limbs to disappear.
“I was still sort of thinking that tomorrow I’ll wake up and I’ll be ok,” Tanner admitted.
But tomorrow came and went.
✝
One day, his doctor sat him down.
“I can’t guarantee that you’ll ever walk again,” he said. “But I can guarantee that you’ll always have some sort of limp, wear some sort of brace, be disabled for the rest of your life.”
His denial disappeared. In its place, anger.
Riding home with his mom that afternoon, he seethed. He was enraged. At the world. At fate. At whatever cruel force upended his life in an instant.
Was this it? Was this all that was left for him?
“Right now, the world just keeps on turning, no matter what happens to you,” his mother said to him. “You gotta roll on, figure things out.”
Tanner sat with that for a moment. She was right. The world wasn’t going to stop for him.
Then he saw it.
Pulling into the driveway, Tanner noticed a cardboard box on the front porch.
Sure enough, it was the backpack.
Months later, it arrived. The backpack he asked for before all of this. Before the stroke, before the hospitals, before the wheelchairs, before the endless physical therapy sessions.
It was supposed to be for the life he planned, the adventures he dreamed of.
Now, it was staring back at him.
“I was like damn, at first it made me more angry,” remembered Tanner.
Something shifted. The doctor’s words replayed in his mind. But this time, they didn’t anger him. They challenged him.
He was never going to walk again?
Yeah, right.
“I’m gonna do something with that backpack.”
✝
Tanner knew he needed something more. He needed a goal, a challenge, something that he could push himself toward beyond the limits that were placed on him. At first, he considered another Outward Bound trip, a journey that would be structured and familiar.
But then he started hearing about the Appalachian Trail.
“I didn’t really even know what it was,” Tanner admitted. “I had heard of it, but I didn’t know anything about it. But it felt like God was calling me to do it.”
Exactly one year after the stroke that changed his life, Tanner stood at the southernmost point of the Appalachian Trail in Georgia, the new red and black backpack strapped to his shoulders. The journey ahead was brutal, 2,200 miles of mountains, isolation, and exhaustion.
“One of the reasons I wanted to do the Appalachian Trail was for the physical challenge,” Tanner said. “But also the solitude. Sort of do some soul-searching.”
For the past year, his life was filled with constant noise - doctor’s voices and therapist’s instructions. But in the mountains, there would be nothing but his own thoughts, his own prayers, the sound of his own footsteps on the trail. He wanted to see what he was capable of and to figure out who he was, beyond the stroke and the doubts everyone had for him.
And so, on March 3, 1995, the anniversary of the day everything changed, he started walking.
✝
The first step was the hardest. And it didn’t take long for the Appalachian Trail to test him. The first ten days were nothing but cold temperatures and constant rain showers. He averaged five to six miles a day in the beginning, struggling to keep moving forward. But by the summer, he had worked his way up to 14 miles a day.
Unlike other hikers who set out with the goal of finishing all 2,200 miles, Tanner wasn’t even thinking about the next month.
“My goal was to do one week,” he said. “And after that, I set another goal. Then another.”
At the six-week mark in Hot Springs, North Carolina, Tanner met John Albrecht, a fellow hiker who would soon become one of his closest companions on the trail. They ended up hiking nearly 1,000 miles together.
Albrecht remembers the first time he met Tanner.
“Great guy, great attitude. He never complained,” Albrecht recalled.
By the time they met, Tanner had taken more falls than he could count. His left leg dragged with every step, the top of his left boot scraping against the ground so much that he had to replace his shoelaces every 200 miles.
And yet, he never stopped.
“There’s a lot of what they call PUDS - pointless ups and downs,” Albrecht said, shaking his head. “The trail goes over every pile of rocks. And he’d fall, and then he’d keep going. It was amazing. Amazing guy.”
The trail knocked him down again and again, but every time, he got back up. Step by step, fall after fall, mile after mile. He kept walking.
Every so often, he would reach a road crossing or a new town where someone would be waiting - Sally. His girlfriend at the time, now his wife.
She would drive hours and hours, trusting when she arrived at an agreed-upon spot, he would be there. There were no calls to confirm, no text messages to check in. Just faith.
“There was so much trust,” she said. “If I’m gonna get on the road and drive six hours, he’s gonna be there. It was a lot of trust and patience.”
Sally wasn’t just an occasional visitor on Tanner’s journey, she became a part of it. Whenever she could, she would hike with him, encouraging one another along the way. The trail tested them in different ways - him physically, her in patience and trust. But through the miles, the falls, and the waiting, their bond only grew stronger.
“I felt like that really strengthened our relationship,” Tanner said.
But there were moments of real fear, moments when the journey became almost unbearable.
Tanner came close to quitting. Near the very end, in Maine, he drank some bad water and contracted giardia, an intestinal infection that turns every bathroom break into an urgent crisis.
“I literally woke up and got so sick, looked for a map, tried to figure out what to do,” he recalled. “My only option was to walk 10 miles, sick as anything, to a tiny little town in Maine in September. And of course it was their top tourist season,” he said laughing.
He called his mom, ready to give up.
“I was like, ‘I’m done, please come and get me,’” he said.
But she didn’t.
“You know what?” she told him. “Only 100 miles left. You got this. Tough it out. You’ll regret it for the rest of your life if you don’t.”
Sally also remembered exactly how she felt when she heard how sick he was.
“That may have been the hardest part,” she admitted. “That was probably the scariest. I remember thinking, ‘This is not good. He might die out there.’”
Looking back, Tanner knew if he was anywhere else, anywhere further south, his mom probably would have come. But she didn’t. And so, sick as a dog, he kept going.
✝
The Appalachian Trail has a way of transforming people, forging connections, causing terrible illnesses, whipping them into shape. On the trail, no one goes by their real names. Instead, they earn new ones, nicknames connected to the journey itself.
Screaming Coyote. Sans Souci. Babelicious.
Tanner’s trail name, Screaming Coyote, started with his mom. The summer before he began hiking, she traveled to New Mexico and brought Tanner back a small crystal coyote. She was always somewhat spiritual and felt as though this would be special.
“I started pondering on the nature of a coyote,” Tanner explained. “It reminded me of myself, kind of going out on my own, howling, trying to figure things out. I had a lot built up inside of me.”
It felt right. He was venturing out into the wilderness, doing something wild, something that made him feel alive. But also vulnerable, like a coyote howling into the unknown.
“I can’t howl, but I can scream pretty good,” he said, grinning.
Alas, Tanner’s trail name was born: Screaming Coyote.
✝
October 1, 1995.
The day Henry Tanner finished the Appalachian Trail was a combination of everything he fought for over the past seven months. The pain, the setbacks, the doubt, the sickness. It was a moment he often thought about, but could never truly imagine what it would be like.
His mother was always a source of inspiration and strength for Tanner. From the very beginning, she supported him, pushed him to keep going when things seemed impossible. She made a promise to him that she would be there for the last mile.
“Henry, when you finish, I’ll be there,” she’d said. “Wherever you are, I’ll meet you for that last mile.”
As he neared the end, the last mountain - Mount Katahdin - emerged ahead. The highest peak in Maine, a daunting challenge after seven grueling months on the trail. It didn’t help that he was still sick, exhausted, and weakened. But he was determined.
His mom was ready to hike the last stretch with him. Kind of.
“She would walk around our neighborhood in Raleigh, trying to get in shape for it,” Tanner laughed, remembering when she’d said, “Yeah, I walked around the block twice!”
But halfway up the mountain, he could tell that they weren’t going to make it. The terrain was steep and unforgiving.
Tanner knew there would be no way they could make it to the top and back down before the sun set, so his parents decided to head back down while he continued to the top. He pushed onward, determined to make it to the summit. Left foot dragging, stomach in shambles.
When he finally reached the top, he was met with reporters, cameras flashing, basking in his glory. He did it.
He completed the Appalachian Trail.
But something was missing. He didn’t feel complete.
What could possibly be missing?
Moments later, he heard, “HENRY! You made it!”
To his shock, there was his mom - stumbling up the last part of the trail, gasping for breath, calling out for her son.
It took a moment to fully process it. His mother, who had always been there, was making the final climb, just like she promised. Tears immediately flooded his eyes. Words caught in his throat. His heart hammered in his chest.
He hiked for months through unbearable pain, illness, and the struggle to keep moving. Yet he made it. And standing at the summit, he wasn’t alone.
“You could tell it took so much for her to get up there,” he recalled, tears welling up in his eyes. “It was a big day.”
At that moment, Tanner realized just how much of his strength and determination came from her. She never once let him believe that he couldn’t achieve what he wanted to do. Through every tumble, every moment of doubt, she pushed him forward. She believed in him when he barely believed in himself.
Sally saw it too.
“I think Henry’s story is a really big testament to his mom and the kind of person she was,” she said. “If that was me, I couldn’t be that strong and say, you need to go do that.”
✝
After he finished the hike, Tanner took on a new perspective, growing both spiritually and physically. The Appalachian Trail tested him in ways he never imagined, but he learned deeper lessons along the way that have shaped him into the man he is today.
“God gave His life for me,” Tanner said, reflecting on the role faith now plays in his life. “Through my struggles, I’ve come to understand that the Lord is my master, and my purpose is to glorify Him.”
Looking back on his journey, he acknowledges the important transformation in his relationship with God. “You are either for or against God, and there’s no in-between. For so long, I had been against Him. So many times, He pulled me toward Him, but I pulled away. I heard His calling but ignored His instructions.”
The stroke, in many ways, forced him to slow down, something he resisted his whole life. But in that stillness, he found clarity, and with it, a newfound commitment to God.
“I used to hate anything that was slow,” he recalled. “But this experience slowed me down a lot more. I became a lot more reflective, thinking about bigger things than what life has thrown at me.”
That reflection deepened his faith and reshaped his priorities. Tanner has spoken at his church in Raleigh and remains actively involved in his church community. Every Sunday, he attends worship services, finding strength in fellowship and sharing his story with others. His faith has become his purpose, not just as something to lean on during hard times, but as his guiding force in life.
Yet his story hasn’t only shaped him, but also his daughter, Frances. Now in her college years, she often reflects on what he went through at her age, how everything was taken away in an instant.
“If that were to happen to me tomorrow, I don’t know what I would do,” Frances said with a deep breath. “I would probably think it’s the end of the world.”
What stands out to her most isn’t just the stroke itself, but the way her dad responded to it. Many people would have backed down, given up. But Tanner didn’t.
“The way he took it as a challenge instead of just letting it beat him down is really inspiring,” said Frances.
For Frances, her dad’s story isn’t just a story, it’s something she carries with her every day, in everything she does. His unwavering faith is what she admires most.
“His journey is something I lean on a lot in my own faith,” she said.
For Frances, her father’s journey is a reminder of what’s possible, even when all odds are against you. She’s learned that setbacks don’t have to define a person, it’s how they move forward that truly matters.
✝
When faced with a moment that could have shattered him, Tanner refused to let it define his future. He fell, again and again, but never failed to get back up. Even now, with his left side still slow to respond, he refuses to let it hold him back. Because of his perseverance and faith, and his backpack showing up months late, he didn’t just walk again.
He climbed mountains.