When I am feeling brighter, I know in my heart this is not true. When I die, I will be in all and everything. I will breathe a lungful of sun and a heartbeat of moon. And even though I am childless, my spirit will beat with the fullness of love. I will be out in the wild places, free on the winds. In the high clouds and the early dew. In some part of the soil, or salt, or the lift of a wave. I will be in a songbird’s throat and on the spit of spray of a gull’s wing. I may not be seen, but I hope that in my death, as in my life, I will be felt. That my life will help to nourish other lives. And that one day, in my own small way, I will be mother to all.
Most days I go to the shore. I watch the sea furling and unfurling as I stand with Maude, listening to the waves. In the half-light, the geese are calling. A graze of sound on the horizon, tearing a low glimmer of sky. Out there, in the further darkness, a stirring wind is up.
Whitecaps crest an incoming tide. Above, gulls are circling, thin cries skirling, white feathers fraying against the sharp edge of the northerly wind. Sounds blur, carry, lift or are lost. Every few minutes, a gust of spray hurls itself fierce against the sharp limestone rocks. My cheeks are wet with spray. I listen to its steady-building crescendo, a lull, and then its inevitable fall. A low rushing sound follows, like a slow, heavy release of brakes.