Translations in Water
The ocean was unusually clear during our visit to the Outer Banks, so I traded my sunglasses for my daughter’s snorkel mask and searched the water for shells. I struggled to hold my breath more than a few seconds in the wash and swirl of the waves. Better with a little practice, sure, but I couldn’t stay beneath the surface for long, and the push and pull of the surf narrowed my chances at finding a souvenir.
I’ve known dogs with more grace in the water.
My love for the ocean began in childhood, but swimming did not come naturally. There I am in our family car, streaming tears and unable to stifle the spasms—my little engine fueled by fear—on the weekly trip for lessons. That’s me again, age six or seven, and this time I’m the boy whose footing slips at the edge of a backyard pool. Panic drops its anchor, erases the sky and, for a few moments, I’m carried far from the sounds of those enjoying the summer day. Time lengthens and likewise loses traction. My attempts to cry out for help compete with the struggle to breathe until, finally, my brother dives into the water and floats me to safety.
I lived, was probably never that close to drowning, but my world felt shaken.
It’s no surprise how routinely water shows up in our attempts to describe grief. There are of course the literal tears when we cry, and we might call it a “flood” when our grief is strongest. There’s the “sea of grief,” the “spilling grief,” as well as the “microbursts” that, like a downpour, catch us in unexpected moments while grocery shopping, for instance, or waiting for a traffic signal to turn green. Grief “pours” and sometimes we’re “treading water,” barely able to do much more than what’s required. As the grieving process isn’t linear—things do not necessarily get easier day by day—everyone mentions how grief comes in waves… Our throats tighten. Our breath shortens. It feels like we can almost touch the life that’s been uprooted, but we cannot. We feel instead as though we’re sinking.
Whenever visiting the Atlantic Ocean, I time my way through the shifting, almost invisible threshold where the waves rise and crest. With luck and enough distance, you’re safe in a kind of “sweet spot” beyond the breakers and where the water is shallow enough you can still touch bottom. You can float on your back or let the steady, gentle motions lift you up and return you to your feet. You can swim without worry, especially if you resist the thoughts of a lurking shark. You might even recognize your good fortune when you look towards shore and catch sight of a friend—recognized by the blur of an arm or cartwheeling leg—bewildered in a cycle of punishing but ultimately harmless whitecaps.
No one conquers the ocean and, let’s face it, sometimes it’s us caught in the waves.
We go into shock both during and immediately after a traumatic event. Too much happens and happens too quickly, so our brains act as a filter for what we can and cannot hold. The body protects us and much of our grief waits until we’re ready (or almost ready) to process more. After Valerie’s death, a deep, seemingly experienced voice urged me to open the door for the waves of grief that, more than a year later, arrive of their own accord. That part of the grieving process was intuitive, a reflexive response like a baby moving her arms and legs when lowered tummy down into water. Allowing myself to cry when I need to cry, and doing so in front of Emerson and Whitman, was equally instinctive.
The experts say any body of water can exhibit waves, even in the form of ripples in a bathtub. The waves of grief multiplied when my father died, less than three months after Valerie. It’s what they call cumulative or compounded grief, and in response the brain steps up its efforts to shield us from experiencing too much at once. In practice, I was deep in the grief of losing my wife, grieving for my children who lost their mother, and I didn’t feel like I had the bandwidth to grieve the loss of my father. The cumulative grief gathers and continues to manifest much more than I’d like in the muscles of my shoulders and neck. Its weight exceeds recommended capacity, often when the days are otherwise calm.
Although the gravitational pull of the sun and moon creates the tides, most waves are caused by the wind. I don’t recall so much as a breeze from the series of snapshots I’ve replayed many times since a vacation three decades ago… The sky and water are a brilliant blue, and the sand on the panhandle of Florida is the whitest I’ve ever seen. Behind the camera of memory, I’m focused on the image of my father, a man who used gasoline to clean grease from his hands and whose temper could run so hot that he sent a dinner plate flying when he slammed his fist down on our kitchen table. Those same hands could open the most stubborn pickle jar or guide my father the entire length of a swimming pool (and back) without once breaking the surface for air.
“My dad can beat up your dad,” I might say if we were on a playground.
But here my father looks small, knee-deep where the Gulf waters collapse along the shore. In the next frame, half a second later, he’s turned toward the beach where my brother and I watch with a mixture of curiosity and anticipation. His eyes are closed. He’s tightened his face and body for the wave that reaches up past his shoulders. In that final frozen snapshot, the water has already exploded around my father’s shape. I remember that we laughed and later teased my father: the collision left behind the equivalent of an enormous sunburn. Thinking about it now, I realize I revisit this sequence of images because they recreate the moment when I saw my father’s vulnerability. He was human after all.
“Now” is nearly thirty years later and a few weeks shy of the anniversary of my father’s death. He cannot answer the phone should I call to tell him about this year’s trip to the ocean, where I was the grown man with a child’s mask strapped tightly to my face. At first, like I’d seen others do, I dove headfirst into each crashing wave, but the force of the water coupled with the force of my plunge and… My ears felt as though they’d been slapped. And so, a day or two later, back in the water and facing another set of waves, I tried a different approach. As the first wave grew close, I bent my knees and bowed as though in prayer or, perhaps, to show gratitude for all the world gives, and with respect for everything it takes. I lowered my face just as the water crested and felt for the first time like I was meeting the ocean on its terms, rising and falling according to the natural rhythms, knowing we can find assurance even in what’s uncertain.
There’s a path for us through the waves, whatever their shape and size.