Two Islands

While I was pregnant with Beckett, I was subject to panic attacks.  On the outside, I probably just looked concerned and stoic.  But inside I was screaming.  I felt trapped and anguished.  As daunting as the situation ahead seemed, sitting in the anticipation of it seemed worse.  I carried that apprehension all the way in to the early hours of December 3rd when Beckett’s death, after so much talk of possibility, did finally come to pass.

But obviously I couldn’t function in an endless anxiety loop, so I had to develop ways to cope.  I got serious about meditation.  I read books about positive thinking.  If there was some sort of upbeat benefit to something, I tried it.  It’s one of the good things I have carried in to my post-Beckett life.  I just have less of a tolerance for bullshit concurrently than I did while he lived.

So while Beckett was still in utero, I would take time every evening to sit down for at least ten minutes to focus on letting go, on just being.  Meditation takes a lot of practice and I am not naturally good at it.  I pinch seconds.  Time management is one of my strengths, and taking space in the day to do what added up to nothing in the physical realm required self discipline.  But I did it, and the more I did it, the better I got at it.  During my sessions, I listened to the sound of waves rolling on to the beach, in and out.  I wasn’t good at literally imagining nothing.  I found myself desperately trying to force my mind to be stationary as it was unleashed on a black canvas.  But why are we thinking about nothing?  Shouldn’t we be imagining a great forrest and all the animals that live in it?  Wouldn’t that be even more relaxing?  Or we could be floating through space?  Are we near planets?  Are there other people?  It was a futile wrestling match for peace and quiet.

My brain needed light direction.  And I found when I imagined the beach, it was a very still image.  It helped hold my imagination steady.  The only feature that need change was the water itself.  I cheated a little more though.  I also envisioned a family; mine.  Tyler and I, clearly defined.  Moira, a little more unclear as she shifted through time and age, but the major pieces there.  Long dirty blonde hair, tall, exuberant.  And a little boy.  I imagined him with dark hair, because I was still presently shocked that his sister didn’t bear it herself with two brunettes for parents.  I imagined it curly just because.  He was shorter than any of us, with arms and legs and no machines attached to him.  He was always holding my hand.  Of course this child was Beckett.  I saw the four of us sitting still on the shoreline and watching the sunset.  I would settle in on this image and sit in it’s peace.  A hope for the future.  But in the darker parts of my mind, a different picture would slide in to view too.  An alternate.  I would try to quiet the parts of me that considered Beckett’s death, but inevitably, I would sometimes slip.  When those thoughts manifested, I told myself that even if we couldn’t sit hand in hand in the sand, I was still going to take him to the ocean.

So when he died, I knew what I wanted to do moving forward.  We had him cremated, and we started planning for a day by the ocean to lay him to rest.  I often imagined it as I had in my earlier meditation images.  Hot, sunny.  Beautiful as the sun touched the sea and cast orange glow everywhere.  The months building up to the beach day left me bouncing between emotions.  Sometimes I looked forward to the opportunity.  Some days I was sure I could never part with him.  Then I would remember that he was already gone, and the thought process would start over again.  I told myself all the while that I didn’t have to do anything I didn’t want to do, even as I packed him in to a carry on bag and left for the airport.

March 17th came, and Tyler and I discussed our decision to follow through.  It felt right.  We all settled in to our hotel room, oddly formal and at the same time casual.  Joining Tyler, Moira, and I were two of my best friends, their spouses and children, my brother, and my mom.  We had no true plan.  Just to open Beckett’s urn on the beach and let him slip in to the water.  I felt nervous, and sick.

We had discussed a time, and as it approached, I asked everyone to allow me the opportunity to be alone with Beckett as I made my way to the beach.  Everyone of course understood, and I left unaccompanied.  I was not fifteen feet from the doorway when I started to cry so hard I was gasping.  My vision was streaming.  But I walked forward and I clutched Beckett’s remains to my chest.  I had brought a photo album of my favorite pictures of him as well.  It was cold that day and I was disappointed.  I had imagined this moment tropical in a way.  A paradise I had hoped to share with him when we started our journey together.  But someone else in our group felt it was very appropriate weather.  Foggy, hardly any visibility at all.  Chilly and otherworldly.  As I walked, I came to agree.  Besides, I had long since had to accept a much less beautiful version of my original fantasy.

I approached the shoreline and stopped just before the sand became damp.  I sat and looked at the images I had brought along of my sweet son.  My heart was re-broken and I apologized to him countless times.  Looking back now, I realize it is the last time I spoke more than a few words to him.  They were primitive utterings.  Love.  Sadness.  Sorry.

I knew my time would be short before loved ones came to wish him farewell.  So I walked the rest of the way to the sea and I let it crash over my feet.  It was icy, but it was wintertime back home and it didn’t startle me.  As I looked out at the horizon, I looked at the large island directly ahead.  It was hardly visible through the deep mist, but just barely, it could still be seen.  The day before had been much brighter, and as we had enjoyed a day in the sun, a member of our party pointed out the island.  And beside it, a second one.  Smaller, but also jutting out of the surf.  Today, there was nothing at all to see where I knew the latter one was located.  The fog had rendered it completely invisible, but still, I knew it was there.  My mind was struck with the notion that these islands were like my children.  One, large and strong, seemingly cast of iron.  Impossible to miss.  But just beside it, another.  Not as domineering, perhaps not as substantial, but still firm.  Today, I could not see the second island.  But I knew it’s outline in my minds eye when I stared in to the horizon.

This isn’t meant to symbolize the age old notion that while a loved one is not physically here, they are here just the same.  I hate cliches concerning the death of my son, and I don’t know where Beckett is.  I don’t like to speculate about him casually.  What I mean to share is that now a new illustration rests in my mind of my family on the coast.  It is of an empty waterfront as I look out on two beautiful islands.  They are mine and I am theirs and together we stand fixed and hushed.  Beckett is my little island.  Perhaps not formidable.  But breaking through the surf.  And ever present on my shores.

We did leave Beckett in the sea that day.  We wept uncontrollably and stood shivering in the water as the salt rubbed us raw.  I had stayed true to my word and to my own heart.  I had taken my son to the ocean and we had been together as a family on it’s beaches.  I like to continue to imagine him there, even if it can never be more than a dream.  I have a lifetime to walk the shorelines of this great planet, and I like to feel that now Beckett can ride the very seas.

Image credit: Dusty Image