Sacramento Woman To Climb Mt. Kilimanjaro In Memory Of Husband, Daughter

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) - She's dealt with crushing loss, first with the death of her daughter and then the passing of her husband, but isn't keeping her from moving forward.

Looking at the pictures on her Facebook page, you get the idea that Loretta Hitch was living the perfect life -- loving husband, beautiful family, and exotic travel.

"We had a charmed life and we knew it. We knew we were living a dream," she said.

Then, in a six month span, Loretta lost nearly everything.

"We were in Australia climbing and a couple hours after we had gotten down we got the call that Cory had taken her life. She was 25," she said.

It was devastating. Loretta's husband dealt with the loss the way he dealt with everything, he powered through and kept climbing. Then tragedy struck again when he was climbing Mt. Everest.

"I was still grieving for Cory and I got the call that rick had collapsed on the way to stage three -- he died. It took me by surprise, took the legs out from under me," said Loretta.

The two losses were almost too much for her, but then she started reading Rick's climbing journals.

"When he was writing, he would sign off to me. It was like he was talking to me," said Loretta.

Then she started moving. It was almost as if Rick was pushing her. You may have seen her climbing the stairs at Woodcreek High School training to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro for Rick and Cory.

Loretta says she's considering releasing the journals in a book form to share them with the world.