“I hope this grief stays with me because it’s all the unexpressed love that I didn’t get to tell her. This is all the unexpressed love, the grief that will remain with us until we pass because we never get enough time with each other, no matter if someone lives til 60, 15, or 99.” – Andrew Garfield

There was a man. A man who loved his wife. When she died, he did something that few get the chance – he quite literally moved a mountain to save lives. Here’s his story.

Dashrath Manijhi lived in Gehlaur, India. Gehlaur was a small village, where Manijhi lived with his wife, Falguni Devi. The couple was young, and in 1959, Devi fell from a high mountain ridge. Some reporters said that she had been on her way to bring food to Manijhi, who was working outside of their village.

Dashrath Manijhi Road. Photo courtesy of Atlas Obscura

Injured, she desperately needed medical help. But the path to a doctor was more than 30 miles away, and a mountain stood between Devi and the help she needed to survive. After Devi died, Manijhi grieved. He told others that he did not want anyone else to feel that sort of grief, so he decided – if the path to the doctor was blocked by a mountain, then he’d go through that mountain.

And he did. Manijhi knew that the path over the mountain was narrow and rocky and was determined to carve a better one through it. “When I started hammering the hill, people called me a lunatic, but that steeled my resolve,” he said.

Most villagers taunted me initially, but quite a few lent me support later by giving food and helping me buy my tools.”

Manijhi began work in 1960. Twenty-two years later, he had carved a path more than 360 feet long, 25 feet deep and more than 30 feet wide. It earned him the nickname “Mountain Man.” What once took 34 miles to reach a doctor, now would take little more than 9 miles. Lives, the villagers knew, would be saved by this.

A statue of Dashrath Manijhi. Photo courtesy of Atlas Obscura

After his death in 2007, the local government built a paved road over Manihji’s hand-carved path. In Gehlaur, there is a statue and memorial in honor of him. In 2015, a movie was made, that highlighted the love he had for his wife and how that love spurred him to do what should have been impossible.

This tale of a man versus a mountain, shows how grief, while painful, can also inspire someone to do the miraculous. Grief, as Garfield said, is the love we still have for those we’ve lost. For Manijhi, that grief was expressed by making sure no one else would suffer the same fate his wife did.

Sources: My Modern Met | Atlas Obscura