winter ocean
moonlight dancing on waves
our final farewell
migrating whales in the deep
singing you home
Our Last Road Trip: #1 Brunswick Beach
Endings, once a favourite of mine due to the promise of a new beginning, have lost their appeal. Endings now equate to final farewells, which are never easy.
For forty-two years my mate and I travelled together. The freedom of the open road never failed to refresh our spirits, rekindle our love of life or arouse the joy of exploring new places. We delighted in the majestic beauty of the earth and cherished the shared journeys.
This trip will be our last. I will be scattering his ashes in eighteen locations around Australia and New Zealand. Lying in his hospital bed, he designed this trip, for him and for me. His ashes would mingle with the earth and the sea in the places he loved most, and he would take me on our last road trip.
A gift I am grateful for, even whilst it breaks my heart.
He passed away in 2020. Not the best of years, as we have all discovered. Since then, this journey has been cancelled, postponed, fractured into pieces, but never abandoned.
In the midst of lockdowns and barricades, when the state border opened briefly, (some of) my family scattered the first of his ashes on the beach at Brunswick Heads in New South Wales, at sunset with the full moon rising over the ocean. It was beautiful and perfect.
We wrote a message of love in the sand, and red rose petals replicated the tears in our hearts. The children waved sparklers in the night air, and we called the whales – a story in itself, which is part of another of the eighteen.
A row of candles called our spirits to his.
The sky turned soft yellows, oranges, pinks and purples as the land darkened. The sea absorbed these soft colours before both turned a deep azure blue. The evening winter breeze crispened the clear sky, as it merged with the sea. When it rose, the moon streamed golden like the rising sun, then sparked the ocean with dancing beams of light.
The waves gently formed their own patterns in the sand, as we said our farewell.
We had walked this beach together, with our adult children, and with each of the grandchildren as they came along. We have swum, played in the waves, and shared many a picnic on the beach.
This beautiful winter evening, I shared the beach, the ocean and the waves with him one last time.
Now I walk the beach alone.