9/5/24

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

When I went to bed last night and when I woke up this morning, my last and first thoughts were about what I was going to write about this week. Nothing really stood out to me. There were some good days and there were some bad days, and then there were some really awful days, which seems to be the pattern grief takes on. I relished the good days, I plodded through the bad days, and on the really awful days, I took three showers, standing in the comforting heat of the drumming water and soaking myself in tears.

During breakfast, I thought I came up with an idea. Then I checked my emails, took yet another shower, and prepared for my walk. Right before I left, I noticed someone left a comment under one of the many photos I posted of the Oregon coast. This one showed a path in the sand made by some sort of vehicle, and I pondered if it was showing me the way to go. Someone asked, “Will it lead to a sand dollar?” I answered, “Hasn’t yet, but I didn’t ask for one this year either.” I headed out the door.

For those that don’t know, sand dollars have provided some stellar moments for me here in this exact spot. One year, when I came here feeling thoroughly defeated, thoroughly useless, and like I’d wasted my whole life, I had a yell-at-the-ocean moment in which I asked what the world wanted from me, and then I said, “If I am on the right path, if I am doing what I’m supposed to be doing, then let me find a whole sand dollar. A WHOLE sand dollar. Not a broken one.” A few nights later, on a foggy night, I was walking next to the ocean and heading back to the little house. An old man appeared out of the fog, walked right up to me, got in my face, and asked if I’d found a whole sand dollar. He reached in his pocket and pulled out three and told me to choose one. I did. I never saw him again.

Then, the year after I had breast cancer, I came here again and yelled at the ocean. “You didn’t tell me my path was going to include cancer!” I yelled. “If I’m going to be okay, then this time, let ME find the whole sand dollar.” On my last morning here, I walked out to the ocean to say goodbye. I felt a bump on my toe and found a small whole sand dollar, washed right up to me.

During the breast cancer year, a friend came out to the west coast, not in the same place as I come, but close. He said he was looking out at the ocean, thinking of me, when he felt a bump against his bare foot. He looked down and found a sand dollar, which he brought back to me.

So sand dollars mean a lot. But this year, when I got here, I didn’t say anything to the ocean at first. Finally, I just said, “What the hell?” and then I started moving through my two and a half weeks here. I did not ask for a sand dollar. It would take, I thought, a lot more than a sand dollar to make me feel better. To make me feel that what happened this year in any way was supposed to happen.

This is, without a doubt, the worst year of my life.

So this morning, I headed out on my walk, thinking I knew what I was going to write about in this blog, and having answered that, no, I hadn’t found a sand dollar and I hadn’t asked for one.

It was a noisy night last night, and when I stepped onto the beach, I found that the tide came up very far, farther than I’ve ever seen it. It left the beach filled with detritus, huge clumps of seaweed, logs of driftwood, dead jellyfish, crab shells, rocks, clumps that may have once been sea birds. The sand was very uneven, boggy in places, hard in others, and I had to be very careful where I stepped. So I moved more slowly than normal, and my eyes roved often from the waves to the ground in front of me. I torqued my right hip a couple days before coming here, and it was just starting to feel better. I didn’t want to get hurt.

Moving slowly, not wanting to get hurt, but aching with an ache that feels like it will never go away, my eyes were drawn to a small white disk. I knew what it was before I bent to pick it up.

The teeniest, tiniest, slimmest, most fragile of sand dollars. Whole. But no bigger than my thumbnail.

For a moment, I stood there, looking out at the ocean. I thought about throwing the sand dollar as hard as I could, losing it again to the sea. I thought about dropping it back to the sand and then grinding it under my heel.

I mean, you’ve got to be kidding me. What the hell?

In the end, though, I cupped it in the palm of my hand and curled my fingers over it. I carried it for the rest of my walk and then back. As I passed the place where I found it, I saw that the water had come in and rolled over it. If I’d come by a few minutes later, I would never have seen the sand dollar.

Before I climbed the steps up the bluff and to the little house, I turned and faced the ocean. Her waves were reaching out.

“Thank you,” I said.

Maybe I’m going to feel better, little by little.

Hope always rises, people.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.