I went to one of our spots yesterday, left the kids swimming with their grandparents on the beach and paddled out past the rocks, around the little curve in the inlet to the place where the water gets shallow and the sand is like a mud spa. Remember the way you used to burrow your feet under the sand and kick up little clouds of dust into the water? I got shallow enough to push my feet under, singing Blue Rodeo and Whitney Houston, and crying.
I miss you the way a person misses the past, the way a person misses a happy childhood, miss singing as loud as we wanted on the lake and paddling into the wake of passing motorboats to get their waves.
I took D out to the mini-Island behind the beach house that used to play all that music late at night, and then I took him to the causeway and we paddled and I sang and he looked at me like why are you singing Mama, and didn’t join in.
It was beautiful and it was happy and it was sad all at once and I think I realized that who knows when we’ll be together at one of our spots again, if we’ll be together at one of our spots again, or if we’ll have to make new spots in new places, and how are we both supposed to get there when you’re so far?
D wanted to paddle to the big Island but it was rainy and he was writing cheques his arms couldn’t cash, so instead we sat in the kayak and waited for a motorboat to pass and rode the waves it made, and he loved that and his smile made me smile.
It’s weird to think of this feeling as grief, to think of myself as grieving even though nobody has died. But you’re out of reach, close enough to hear through satellite signals and see in pixels, but not to hug, not to help fold laundry or share a plate of vermicelli and rice paper wraps. And it’s so hard to sing together over VOIP, as soon as one of us starts, the other’s voice cuts out.
I miss you the way I miss familiarity, stories I don’t have to explain, half baked memories that have taken on their own meaning, grown to make new ones. Jokes that barely need to be told before they trigger belly laughs, sudden hugs, unprompted, tears falling and wiped away, head massages, warmth.