"The ebb is the outgoing phase, when the tide drains away from the shore; and the flow is the incoming phase when water rises again."
The tide will always turn... it will ebb and it will flow.
The tide will always turn.
It will rush in.
Sometimes with violent, smashing waves that leave destruction in it's wake.
Sometimes with the gentle and sudden arrival of fresh tide lines- effortlessly appearing.
It will flow.
It will rush out. The pull of the outgoing tide will sweep away the sand from around your toes. Each grain will whip away and you'll sink just a little in the shifting sand.
I watched as the life in him ebbed away.
Like the ebb of that tide, that's how he left.
Yes, the tide will always turn.
It will ebb.
Highs and lows of the tide.
Highs and lows of our days.
Highs and lows are necessary and expected.
How these highs and lows hurt though- as they ebb and flow around the memories that echo fainter today than they did yesterday.
I'm worried that I've forgotten what he sounded like.
The rise and fall of his voice when he gave the running commentary of a football game.
How often did I mutter in regular annoyance for him to be quiet...
I couldn't hear what was going on...
Sshhhhh...
Silly me to ever have quieted him. To want his chatter to cease.
I miss his voice.
I miss his laugh that was generous and full of abandon when he found something funny.
I miss his voice.
The hum and chuckle of his voice as he chatted to the boys in the early mornings. When he would make the house feel like light and home... because that's what he was.
This separation of the grave- it is felt the most when I listen late at night or early in the morning, and I strain my ears... but I can't hear it. and I won't hear it. And I worry then- that I have forgotten.
But it's normal- it's the ebb and flow of the tide, these worries about what I can recall and what I can't retain.
It's just what happens as time passes. Some things will drift into the blur of forgetting. I don't want it to- but it will. It does.
Yes... the days roll out and the distance between my hearing him and holding his hand is a distance made wider.. there is distance created with each turn of the tide.
Another day of ebb and flow.
We are doing fine- we have the ebb and we have the flow.
We have the violent rush of emotions that leave a trail of destruction.
We have the sweet days when new adventures are had and the calm of just being us four reigns.
We know the pull of memories that we desperately want to hold onto- hold them tight and hope they stay clear and close.
It happened in the airport last week.
This ebb and flow- the rush and the receding.
We had enjoyed 7 blissful days on the beach- jumping waves and laughing with cousins.
And we were at the airport- homeward bound.
Matthew stilled. He looked around and was instantly alert.
I noticed and watched him.
"What's up Matty??"
He said nothing but kept looking around.
"Oh...nothing. I just heard someone who sounded like dad. It was weird."
And he shrugged it off.
Not me.
I stalked people.
Anyone who was a potential candidate for that similar sounding laugh or for some phrase that was reminiscent of him- I stalked them.
It's probably hilarious in hindsight- there's me... leaning into conversations that weren't mine in the hope that I would hear what my son had heard. Just a second of the laughter that is so absent from our home.
I didn't hear it.
And that's ok.
It's ok to miss his voice. It was a voice that gave me all the comfort and safety that I ever needed in those days I doubted my ability to be a good mum or handle these after-he's-gone days. Of course I'm going to miss that voice.
And it's ok to allow myself these moments of grace in the forgetting parts.
I will forget parts.
There will be a fade. And it's ok to enjoy the flow of happy days and ok days and I'm-not-lost-in-grief days.
That's the ebb and flow.
