“If you’re reading this…don’t be sad,” Mary Sorensen, 60, wrote in the note, according to her husband

NEED TO KNOW

• Mary Sorensen disappeared in Nepal’s catastrophic August floods and her family believes she did not survive
• Her husband tells PEOPLE a rescue crew searched for her and brought back sand for an upcoming celebration of life
• Family members hope to establish an environmental science scholarship honoring Mary’s work and passion for climate advocacy

In a final act of love, a Georgia grandmother who vanished in the devastating Nepal floods left behind a touching note for her loved ones in her will.

Mary Sorensen, 60, was visiting Mount Kailash in August when she was caught in the catastrophic floods that struck Nepal’s valleys along the Chinese border, killing more than 1,000 people.

Mary’s husband, Brian Wildeman, tells PEOPLE that although his wife was never found, their family believes she did not survive.

Brian, 71, says a rescue specialist took a crew overseas “specifically” to try to find Mary following the floods. When he arrived, the landscape was totally devastated.

“There was so much debris,” Brian explains, adding that the specialist said that so much had been washed away that many areas looked like nobody had ever lived there.

Brian says the specialist also found a lot of sand, some of which will be displayed in a bowl at Mary’s celebration of life.

“People can touch it and say, ‘This is the soil that Mary was on,’ ” he explains.

In addition to her love of adventure and the outdoors, Mary was a phenomenal and loving grandmother, known to her grandkids as “Oma.”

Now that his wife is gone, Brian says that a note she included in her will gives her loved ones a sense of comfort and peace.

“If you’re reading this note, don’t be sad,” she wrote, in part, according to her husband. “I’ll see you in heaven.”

A celebration of life for Mary is scheduled to take place on Oct. 23 at Etowah River Park Amphitheater, a local spot that holds a special significance for the couple, who loved taking walks there.

Brian says his wife, an environmental consultant, “was an integral part of the upper Etowah River Alliance” which takes care of the river that runs right through the town.

Family also hopes to establish an environmental science scholarship to honor Mary’s work in the field, as she was passionate about making the Earth a better place to live amid climate change.

“She was willing to say, if we were all doing a little bit better, we’d all be a little bit better,” he says.

Brian tells PEOPLE he plans to tell his grandchildren that their Oma “made a lot of people happy” in addition to doing “great work for the environment.”

“I’m gonna tell them that Oma’s work here is done,” he adds, “and people go back to where God wants them when their work is done.”

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