By the end of last year I was plagued by memories of Go-Go, especially of her final illness and the process of her dying. Every significant date beginning in August, was intensely punctuated by what was happening the previous year during that time.
I made it through the holidays distinctly aware of how weird and sad and peculiar I felt. I undercooked the turkey and burned the squash at Thanksgiving. I invited people for Christmas and then uninvited them – I just didn’t know what I wanted. In the end, we held a simple brunch – cooked by Trish in an effort to ensure the guests would be unharmed.
January came and I announced to Trish that I wanted to go to the beach to do a ritual to acknowledge the one year anniversary of Go-Go’s death. I had no idea what kind of ritual I would do, nor how I would do it, but I brought along some paper, a book of matches, and some shells from her beach in Naples, trusting that I would find inspiration, once there. We drove down the coast and when I saw what looked like a good beach, I pointed and declared, “here”, and Trish pulled into the rutty parking lot and we headed down the trail to Montera Beach.
The weather was gorgeous – a crisp, sunny winter day, warm enough to discard our jackets and feel splashes of sun heating up our turtle necks. We rested on a muddy embankment and while sitting, I asked Trish: “do you think we could see whales in this part of the Pacific?” “No” she said, “I don’t think they would be this close to shore”. With our eyes fixed on the sea we both saw it at the same time; what was unmistakably the fin of a dolphin surfacing and vanishing, and she said, “but you can see dolphins!” We shot up from our perch and right in front of us, we discovered first two, then four, and finally six dolphins frolicking and surfing in the stormy Pacific. I burst into tears, instantly struck by the magic of the dolphins appearing on the one year anniversary of Go-Go’s death.
She loved dolphins! Her child-like excitement was incessant – she watched them for decades, from her balcony in Florida, looking over the Gulf of Mexico. She would begin her mediation early in the morning with a cigarette and a cup of coffee – she insisted morning was the best time to see them, and I usually missed out since the time change often caused me to sleep until noon. Now, a year after her death, it was so clear, this was it, my ritual. At first I murmured through my tears “she doesn’t deserve to come back as a higher life form.” It stung even as I said it, so I was relieved when Trish said, “yes she does, she suffered a lot in her life. And in that moment, and ever since, I knew it to be true - I understood on a very different level, that she suffered as deeply as she partied. My heart broke open and I understood that the things that she did to me, just happened. She didn’t do them to me, she did her life, and I just happened to be there. The shift may seem small, but for me it opened up an ocean of forgiveness.
We followed the dolphins the entire length of Montera Beach, and when the rocky cliffs of the coast obstructed our view, we took our time returning to our perch. Before we left, I ran down into freshly wetted sand and wrote “bye mom” as big as a whale, with my boot prints. The exact moment that I finished the final "M", the tide rushed in so fast I had to race to avoid getting wet, and washed my words away. As we made our way back up the coast toward home, I felt healed, and comforted, and knew everything was going to be okay.
To see more photos from the day: bit.ly/byemom
