Where Grief Meets the Ocean

I am not supposed to be at your funeral. Funerals are for older people who have lived long, rewarding, beautiful lives. Not you, a young, perfectly healthy, in love with me and the world around us triathlete who was just riding bicycles up and down windy paths of the steep mountain, dancing bachata with me, laughing with friends, practicing yoga, singing along to the live music show what seems like moments ago.

Your sisters fix the flowers by your casket, another friend walks in, head bowed in sorrow. I am really confused, have trouble getting enough oxygen in my lungs. Maybe its grief, sorrow, maybe an allergy to the dead flowers, perfume. And amongst all that, a feeling of your hand in my hair, on my shoulder, keeping my heart company in the quiet moments and the ones where weeping overtakes the room.

I feel your face light up when an older man walks in and offers me his condolences. He is the one that got you a job as a teenager that took you on a ship around the world. You disappear a bit while he talks, the story of your first great adventure, away from family, home, making the whole world your home. The deep ache curls up in my belly to rest for a moment. Eventually, the story over, the man walks away, gait unsteady. I am back with my thoughts watching one single leaf in a flower arrangement dance around wildly. There is no air conditioning here in the funeral home, no door to the outside nearby. “Look,” you whisper, words only heard in my mind, “look what I can do now.”

I am remembering us in the open ocean, whale song all around us, light streaming through the blue and you returning to the boat first, safe after the arrival of five oceanic sharks in the midst of the dive, while the rest of us where still splashing around hungry for more wonder, more adventure, more excitement even amidst fear. It’s exactly how this feels. We are not separated. Just… positioned differently. You, still watching over me. Still close. Still anchored in the same wild, deep, sacred sea of energy, of light. I am here, still with the sharks. You are above, free, mask and fins off enjoying peace.

Your nephew wipes the tears away, lost without you being there for him, as a confidant, advisor, someone he could share his secrets with. I offer a hug. I am becoming something new without you here in person, more outgoing, brave, because I have to be. And you get to be a part of it – not as a memory but a presence, as powerful as you ever were, maybe even more so now. The light of you finds its way through cracks, through grief, through oceans full of sleek hungry sharks gliding by. We both hug him, and the crying subsides.

I step outside for the moment, greeting sunlight and fresh air. A squirrel darts by my feet before scrambling up a cypress tree. How do I shift the darkness and heaviness? How do I not only hold and treasure memories of you but make room for you to be with me in new ways? I feel you here, in sunlight touching my skin, in the smell of the evergreen tree, you are somewhere up there with the playful squirrel, I can’t see you directly yet, but I feel the way the way air changes when you are around.

I am learning to be more exact, precise with my words, to select them with care just like I selected clothes to wear here today. I have to catch myself before saying I lost you because how can I lose you when you are here hugging me and touching my hair. Your hands that built houses and helped young teens gain craft skills are now building a sanctuary for our healing and figuring our next steps together. Just like the man who sat down by the tree next to me and played our favorite song, the one you were learning to play just weeks ago, “Over the Rainbow” on a ukulele when my grief would not let me breathe, I have to allow for the signs, for magic to find us.

Instead of asking if it is really you, I am learning to say Thank You when I discover a blue coffee cup under the draping green leaves of the plant in a botanical garden after thinking how can my mornings ever be the same without sharing our coffee together. I am grateful for a white feather that lands on my shoulder indoors on the second floor of an industrial building. I see your footprints in the middle of an abandoned place and dance with you in our room, our love unfolding to the rhythm of our favorite song, our dance not a performance but a conversation between the past and now, between us, so that my tears are not the only thing I have to contribute to the world around me now.

On a Valentine’s Day, the lady at the register charges me for the book I found but not for the purple wind chime with butterflies you loved so much that I decided to get for us, for you. I mention it to her, she smiles but does not correct the charge. A bouquet of flowers that was supposed to arrive later that week arrives that day too, our friends in Hawaii thinking of us and the time at sea.

Even in grief, in messiness, in pain we keep finding a path towards each other, alongside each other. I make your favorite cup of coffee in the mug you like and sit it by the bouquet of flowers across from me. I inhale the smell of it that reminds me of you. I read the love note you wrote a while ago how much you love me and how you would find me in any Universe we might decide to travel to. I sip my coffee, and I know. You are here with me. We see each other, hold each other up. We are deeply, endlessly, irrevocably loved.