Ocean...

When I was a little girl, I used to go watch the waves crash against the rocks of the beach with my aunt. In mist, in downpours, in soul shattering storms, even in a hurricane, there we were, watching and marveling. These moments are the ones that sealed my love of the ocean. In fact, my entire family loved the ocean. I am the daughter and granddaughter of fishermen, men who made the water their home when their land locked ones became too chaotic, or too sad, or too overwhelmingly anything. One summer for my 70 something grandfather's birthday, all the grandchildren donned suits and waded into the water with Pop, his two canes pocking the sand with small circles as well all trekked into the surf. He taught us, all of the adults taught us, to love the water, but most especially the ocean. My mom was laid off one summer, and everyday we all went to the beach. We just soaked in the salt, and the expansiveness of the horizon. My uncle owned a boat, and we spent a lot of time in it, cruising and laughing and loving each other. To me, growing up, the water wasn't about swimming, or sea animals, or science. It was about love and family. Because where my family was was the water. The ocean. And it seemed to just fit, to be the natural place for us to be. Situated in a coastal town, loving and living. When my PopPop got sick, my aunts and my mom would meet on the beach for talks about his care, life, their grief, whatever those pre-dawn talks amounted to. My mom began to collect shells on the shore in those days. By Christmas, everyone had shell wreaths with shells from our own beach. I still have one hanging in my bathroom today.
When my mom passed away, there seemed like nowhere on earth that I got her back, even for a second. Not one place where I could remember her for who she was before the illness came, before it invaded every part of her rapidly and thoroughly, leaving no room for me to recognize the person I love. One day, overwhelmed, exhausted, sick with grief and pregnancy and worry, I went to sit at the beach. Just to escape my world, to find that peace I knew looking at those rocks where the surf crashed when I was a little girl. I found the place, at last, where my mom was. Everywhere I looked, I saw her. Her shells. Her sand. Her surf. Her picnic tables. Even the house she rented for a Halloween party that left my father hitch-hiking in a Batman suit at 3 AM. It was her, at last. The mom I knew instead of the vessel of pain and incomprehension in a hospital bed. After she died, it was where I came to feel her, to talk to her. To be with her again. I have been to her grave. I go every holiday, but she is not there. No, for me, my mom is the ocean.