the right blue

i got caught in roller waves once. i was diving off a beach in Mexico with a group. we were called up because of a freak squall coming that the spotters on the beach were not sure how long it would last. one does not just "come up" from 60' but we got there and got caught up in rollers.

i felt the pull and turbulence of them with about 12 or so feet still to go. it was sucking me up and turning me around. the BC vest was useless to stabilize me. i had never come up in something like this. i almost did not know where the surface was and wondered if i was swimming the wrong way, heading back down rather than up. both were blue but which one was the right one? i admit i was panicked and breathing too fast. but i struggled and finally popped up.

getting pounded by the waves was no fun even after i got the sand under my feet. i was pushed and shoved and then this intense suction trying to pull my feet out from under me. taking the tank off and stripping down, then sitting down on the beach to look back at where i had come from was a religious experience.

it only has to be quiet and my calling up the memory for me to smell it, feel it, and taste the salt. i remember my muscles ached for days afterwards.

talking about it that night with the group on the beach in front of the fire, you would think we had all barely survived. each of us spoke of the flashes of fear. each of us spoke to the colors of the water and the confusion of which blue was the one to work toward. irony is, we all went back out the next day. the call was too strong. the aches, they would fade by the time the plane returned us each to our respective cities that we called home.

being in rollers is what it has been like for me ever since he died. i feel like i am being tumbled and shoved, rolled and slammed by my misery, by the world, by life itself. i miss him yet i have no recourse. i do not know what to do with myself. i do not know where to swim. which is the right blue?

i called my priest back in New England. i have spoken to him a couple of times since the one year milestone passed. he knew my Dragon and i pretty well. it was a small parish. he said that he believed even if my life circumstances had been different, if i had financial security and been able to stay in Rockport where i had made some friends, that he felt i would still be as i am. i am in mourning. he said it was alright for me to still be this sad, cry this often, and to ponder the unanswerable questions.

he said one thing that actually made me feel good about feeling this sad. he said, "i have not seen a couple as bonded as you two in a long while. people marry and are together for years and years, and they love each other and their marriage is truly blessed. but then there is a couple who find each other, and they fuse together until you realize; you never see one without the other. you stop thinking of them as separate people. you think of them as a couple, always together, permanently joined. death cannot shatter that bond. that's why you feel lost right now. but in a while you will feel your soul settling down, and you will know that you have accepted this wait to be rejoined. that is when you will feel some peace inside."

so i am will keep swimming and tumbling in these rollers of mourning until i feel myself settle down inside. i will eventually stop fighting to "get better" as i have been told will positively happen. then i will finally get my breath. i will be able to breathe without this terrible pain in my chest as i wait. i will focus on the right blue to swim to.

i watched the "Burn Notice" marathon the other day. it was our show. lots of parallels to his life. my Dragon would point out where the writers had left some things out so some idiot could not duplicate something in his garage. we always enjoyed that show together. i miss his insights now. i miss his steady voice.

i wanted to watch "Toy Story" tonight and got there too soon. i saw the end of "The Notebook." i got there as he entered her hospital room and got into bed with her. and then they died together holding hands, side by side.

and it broke me in half.

we always wanted to go out like that. my Dragon had said he did not ever want to see the sun dawn on a world that i was not in. i did not want to be in a world that did not have him in it. we kissed all the time. we touched constantly. we slept together always tangled. i was always cold. he was always toasty. we sighed in the night together. his missions were the only times we were apart. and then he had his last one and we were supposed to be together for a long time.

but our ending has been re-written. i can only hope it is now like "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir."

i'll close my eyes and drop my tea cup. and there he will be. he'll reach out his hand and say, "hello, love. i've been waiting for you."

then he'll take me past the moon to Heaven where the angels will be with us to celebrate the start of our forever and nothing will part us again.

i look at the moon, and he is all i think about. i look up all the time at all the beautiful values of blue that color the heavens.

it is like when i got caught in the rollers. i kept trying to swim up. i needed to go towards the right blue.

i still do.