I’ve been thinking about the ocean a lot lately. I have a special connection to it. It’s a connection that did not come to me easily. Having spent more than half of my life living in Florida, I couldn’t recount the trips I’ve taken to the beach to play in the waves and enjoy the sunshine. Dozens of times? Hundreds? Yes, hundreds! Those trips span back to the first ones I made, as a little boy, in the nineteen seventies on family vacations from Indiana.
On the surface, my mention of those numerous past visits and vacations aren’t central to what I’m writing; they are to illustrate the many, many times I have been in and around the ocean and had never felt it for what it really is to me. But deeper down, where my real heart lives, the recollections of those visits and vacations are more than central. They were (and are) one half of the thread that connected me to the sea. The other half of that thread was the death of my father, nearly thirteen years ago.
But death sounds so final, so I will rephrase that to be “passing” instead because that is what I truly believe it to be, a passing. But for me, even that’s not exactly right. It is a passing, but I like to think of it as a “becoming” also. Before I digress too much, I should state that I inherited much of my personal thoughts on the subjects of death and passing from my father and the story of that belongs here.
Many years earlier, my grandfather passed. I was at my parent’s house and we were preparing to travel for the funeral. Having never lost someone close to me before, I was, to say the least, dumbfounded. While sitting inside the house, I saw my father through the window. He was walking around his backyard, kicking rocks, so to speak. Feeling lost and confused, I went outside to join him and was greeted by a simple, “What’s up?”
“Nothing,” I replied.
We walked along in silence. After a few moments passed, not liking the silence, I said, “It really sucks that granddaddy died.” I suppose I was hoping for some grand or experienced explanation, but instead the reply I got was simply:
“No, he didn’t.”
Puzzled, I insisted, “No, he died.” To which, my father’s reply was the same:
“No, he didn’t.”
As we continued walking slowly along, I kept quiet. I began to wonder if my father’s sense of loss was so great, he might have lost his mind. Maybe he’d disconnected from the stark reality that one of his closest friends, his supplemental father, was gone. But before I could wonder longer, he stopped and turned to me.
“Timmy,” he said, tapping a finger against his temple. “Your grandfather didn’t die because he is right here. He is alive here, because I knew him and he is alive here (still tapping his head), because I talked to him. I just can’t talk to him in the same way now. That’s the only thing that’s changed.”
His pure and simple explanation of his perspective immediately made me feel better. His acceptance of the inevitable passing of my grandfather let me know that all was not lost, just different and that was something I fully considered. At the time, I never considered that in a few short years I would be revisiting and applying that perspective to his passing, but he did. And I tried.
After he went, our family returned from the hospital to my parent’s home. We entered the house and I walked to my wife who was sitting cross-legged on the living room floor. I said, lamely, “My dad died.” And she replied quietly, “I know.” I lied on the floor with my head in her lap and I slept for a while. I felt safe. When I awoke, our family spent time talking and eating and making jokes. We recalled good and funny times and events, but after many hours, Beth and the kids and I had to head for our home at the beach.
The sun was still high and hot when we arrived home and we unloaded from the car. I bypassed the house and walked out onto the beach. Being fully clothed, I intended to walk to the water’s edge, perhaps to collect my thoughts, only I didn’t stop walking. I stepped into the foam, soaking my shoes and socks, then my ankles and lower legs and when the waves smacked against my knees, I allowed myself to fall bonelessly over and into the water. I let the waves wash over me and bounce me around. I let them begin to heal me. They dragged me back and forth and placed me in the shallows. They dragged me into the sand.
And as I lay there in that hot Florida sunshine, half submerged and tasting the salt and the sand on my lips and looked up at the sky, the connection I spoke about was made between me and the ocean. There I had been thinking that my father had died with his departure, but the strength and the weight of the water, the endless crashing voice of the sea told me differently. In fact, it insisted. It said purely and simply:
“He is alive here, because you knew him and he is alive here, because you talked to him. You just can’t talk to him in the same way now. That’s the only thing that’s changed.”
Do you have a connection to the ocean?
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