Bear with this piece, its long and a work in progress, it might actually end up being a few separate works or chapters....here is a preview
“All know that the drop merges into the ocean, but few know that the ocean merges into the drop.”
It begins like this. A long drive to the east end of long island. My grandparents in the front, I alone in the back. Alone? I guess not technically alone. Beside me lie the remains of my mother. Nearly 3 years have passed…3 years. Beside me a small black box. I try not to think or look, this is all a bit too much. I stare at the vineyards, farm stands, any beauty amidst the chaos of my mind right now. I never thought it would be this hard. I thought I was done grieving. It started as a simple request. My grandmother had decided that she finally wanted to put her daughter to rest, the remains had stayed too long in her closet, it was time. When my grandmother asked me to accompany her to the beach I agreed. I knew it would be hard for her, and foolishly thought that it would be a simple task for me.
Tasks like this can never be simple.
I realize this when we finally arrive at the beach. I take my grandmother by the hand, easing her step from the car, her dark sunglasses fail to hide the pain. “This is the right thing to do she says,” a sense of questioning in her voice. I tell her yes, this is what needs to be done. Strong. Resolute. Calm. I am all of these things until I glance to my left. Out of the corner of my eye I see my grandfather, he reaches into the black plastic box and pulls out a plastic bag. This is when I it all sets in.
Nothing prepares you for the day you see the remains of your parent in a small plastic bag.
Humbling. Philosophical. Sobering. I am not sure what you would call it. But when you physically see that in the end. After all the smiles. All the tears. All the laughter. All the joy. All the worry. All the pain. After all this, all that remains is ash. I thought I knew this, but at that moment I realized I had no idea. To really know such as thing you need to see it, and then maybe you can know. I still don’t know if I know.
Slowly we walk to the beach. My grandmother, a light fit woman, now seems to bear the weight of the world on her shoulders. My grandfather stands resolutely by her side, gently helping her make her way to the shore. She tries to smile. None of us are sure how to do this. Where to go? What to feel?
Finally we arrive at the shore. The three of us stand by the shore searching for answers. The small bag tucked under my grandfather’s arm.
“You should do it Bill”, he says.
“I know but I can’t,” I respond.
****
This is all too much for me. I know what I have to do. I know what I should do. Despite this, every muscle in my body resists taking that small bag from my grandfather. Call it denial. Call it repression. Call it fear. Maybe it was all of these things. As I hold back the tears I reach out my hand and slowly grab the bag. I look out at the sea and know what I must do. Slowly I ease my way into the ocean. The cool water splashes my legs. When the water reaches my knees I stop, look back at my grandparents and take deep breath. I take the bag, and in what feels like slow motion begin to turn it upside down. As light as snowflakes the ashes begin to fall creating a pool of deep gray around my legs. I look down, part in awe, part in amazement. The ashes don’t simply dissolve and disappear into the ocean. Instead the remains form a swirling dark gray tone around my legs. They linger. She lingers…as if trying to say goodbye. I breathe. A sense of peace washes over me. I alternate between staring out into horizon and looking down at the water as the small waves make their way toward shore, just as the waves since crashed make their way back out to sea.
In the midst of this perpetual motion, one wave beginning, another ending I begin to think. Where does one wave begin and one wave end? To the eye and with our language we clearly distinguish what we call A wave, a singular entity which rises, falls and crashes into the shore, never to exist again. But what of this wave, where does this “thing” go once it is wave no more. Is it not made up of waves that have crashed before it, and will it not become part of the waves that will come after it. In fact as you slowly break it down, the wave becomes just water, there is no beginning, no end, but for that brief moment that we discern what we call “a wave.” The water then that composes that wave then is both always arriving and always departing from shore. Each wave, each moment we suddenly distinguish, is composed simply of water, a bit of the previous wave a bit of the later, water from far off lands, water from close to home, no beginning, no end, just simply water in its essence. The wave then is a construct of the human mind, of our language and of our visual capability. Baffled by the endlessness of water, the way it is composed of pieces from all over, with no clear beginning or end, no neat lines drawn around it, our mind searches for something concrete, something we can clearly delineate and name. Out of this mass of endlessness and uncertainty, from the chaotic and infinite we describe the finite as a wave, a mass of water which makes it way to the shore, crashes and is no more. But it is simply because we have chosen to name this particular moment, instant and entity that the wave is no more. At the molecular level, at its very essence a wave is simply water, it has no beginning, no end, it is not its own unique entity, it is composed of the water before it, the water behind, the endless ocean from which it came.
All of this leads me to think, maybe life is very much the same way. From the infinite and chaotic we emerge, brought into life, the instant we are born. Much like the wave it is hard to discern from where we came, of what molecules, what journey are bodies have taken before this “birth into life.” It also seems at the moment of birth, like the wave, that we are headed to shore, on our own journey, and once we reach shore, our being will exist no more, “life” will come to an end. Much like the fallacy of the wave, it seems life then may simply be a result of our own inability to comprehend the infinite, and the chaotic, our instinctual need to carve out something discrete from a big swirling mass of uncertainty, pulling some small bit of understanding from the incomprehensible. We clearly delineate and mark off what we call “a life,” instilling the infinite with a clearly marked beginning and end. But is there a way to think beyond this invention of the mind, of language, of our own inability to fathom the endless? How might we think of life more like a drop of water in the ocean than a singular wave? Life viewed this way becomes less a distinct singular entity with a clearly defined boundaries and more like the flowing mass it is, drawing simultaneously on the many lives before it, the life it currently envelops and the lives to come. So as the drop merges into the ocean, the ocean also merges into the drop…or as a single life becomes part of the infinite, the infinite is also part of the single life, always there, amassed from memories of the past, sustained by hopes from the future.
****
These thoughts they race through my head, rushing faster than I can comprehend as I stare down at the remains of my mother, melding into the ocean, the ocean melding into her. And just as the ocean slowly absorbs the ashes, swallows it back into that infinite space that no longer has beginnings, or endings, but just simply being. So too my sadness is slowly dissipates, seemingly melding into the ocean along with the ash. As the pool of grey surrounding my legs slowly begins to fade, I feel her, sense her, there is an overwhelming sense of happiness. “Home at last she seems to whisper,” as the last visual remains of her presence swirl into the ocean, becoming one with the water. I wonder to my self, if it is her happiness or mine that I sense. It seems with this act she has been returned to where she belongs, among the infinite, that endless mass of forever that has escaped that realm of human thought that grasps for clear linear being. She was always a part of this vast ocean, long before she arrived, all the while she was here, and forever she will remain. For a brief moment she stood on these shores, I know this because I was there. She loved the ocean, its as if she glanced out at its vastness its beauty and understood the chaos, the complexity that is life. I also envision her returning now with smile on her face. Laughing at me as I clumsily pour her ashes into the water, laughing at my fear of the plastic bag, of all this. Laughing because she knows that life is more then the instant we mark off, that she was long part of the vastness and that cremation, remains, ashes, they are all just symbols we hold on to in our search for clarity in the murky depths of this ocean of life. I sense her laughter and smile too, for I slowly begin to sense it as well. As the ocean has no boundaries, no clear place, she will be everywhere forever with me. We know not where the ocean comes from, nor where it is going. Perhaps her remains are right there as I stare out into the pacific from my house, perhaps she will be there as I dive into the ocean in some far off land, perhaps a bit of her will remain, right there on the shores of Long Island, greeting me whenever I return home to this spot. Knowing her, and knowing the ocean she will be in all of these places. Her soul finally free to roam, to explore and to travel as it pleases. No longer constrained by the confines of life, of these human imposed limits, she can now be the free spirit she always was, and forever will be.
****
As for me, well for now I must step back into the confines of life, of this clearly marked entity we have created. I will go on, as a wave, but deep down will know that I was here long before I arrived, and I will be here long after I depart. And then it occurs to me, that maybe this analogy is not so crazy. I, my physical being, is the result of reproduction. Back further then we can ever trace we began, our cells, our being, is the culmination of all these past lives lived, their regrets, their hopes, their fears, their lives. Each of us carry this long lineage in our cells, our essence is derived from them. My mom, dad and many others literally live on inside of me, without them I would have no being. I too will pass on this life (perhaps) and in that life, will be the lives of those before me, and the lives of those to come. So maybe this ocean thing is not so crazy after all, just like the wave, once you break life down into its individual molecules its hard to discern the clear beginning, middle and end we so strive to see.
With this thought, I slowly turn my back to the horizon and head towards shore. As I look up I see my grandmother’s head resting on my grandfather’s shoulder. Both of their faces carry an odd mixture of sadness and joy, beaming smiles bursting through the damp wetness of tears. They look at me and open their arms in embrace as I emerge from the ocean. I hug them, smile, and we take one last look at the vast expanse of water before us. I smile, and for the first time assuredly tell my grandmother we did the right thing. She is free, I say, free to roam as she always dreamed. And we, we too should be free I say. Free to know that wherever we look, wherever we go, she is there, smiling, peaceful and patiently waiting for us to join her in the infinite. But until then she seems to whisper, enjoy the ride, enjoy your wave, but don’t fear the shore, for you will only be returning to what you always were, what you will always be, a piece of the vastness.
