My dad would probably like me to preface this short story with the fact that he did not start the grief as an ocean visual. I will follow up my saying, I know he didn’t :). But I like how he described it to me best. And I like how I carried on with it after he shared his version. I love the simplest descriptions of the world’s hardest things. To me, that is true understanding. To take something as complex as grief and try to weave it into a visual that will make your heart say, yes, yes that is it.

Here we go.

In my early days of grief, my dad gave me the visual of an ocean. I was in it. Treading water. Barely keeping my head up. And then bigger waves would come and just drown me even further.

Slowly, I found a sand bar. A spot to sit and rest and wait until the next wave came. I could feel grounded again, if only for a brief moment. It gave me strength to face the waves I knew would hit.

Now? Now, I’m on a beach. The most dazzling, beautiful beach. I’d venture to say I have never seen colors so technicolor. I look out at the ocean. It’s beauty. It’s vastness. It’s never ending horizon line. I can feel grounded. I feel hope. I feel gratitude. I feel joy.

But when a wave comes…it is a tsunami. It blasts me with a fierceness that takes my breath away. I feel lost in the middle of the ocean again, struggling to tread water.

And this is grief.

But I will take it, because the beauty. Oh the beauty. It is there and has always been there too 🤍

Let’s do this 2023, I’ve got my beach chair and umbrella. I’m ready for you.