Ocean Breeze

When it happened 20-ish years ago, it seemed surreal. How could I be so careless? I guess in my own defense I was only around eight or nine, but still. They say humans have a primal instinct to survive at all costs, but does that instinct also apply to not only yourself, but those you care about? It has to, how else do people have the gut feeling or mother’s instinct, as they call it. Any who, I should’ve known the risk beforehand, even if I was young.

I find myself returning to this same place where it happened, and I couldn’t help but notice just how peaceful this place was. Of course, after what happened, I don’t think it’ll ever truly be peaceful to me. But I see how one can get lost in their own mind. The trees sound like a gentle choir as the wind flows throughout their bristles, the crashing crescendos of the rolling waves on mossy rocks, and the slight overcast that surrounds you and gives you that peaceful sense of an ocean cool.

And then there it was, the ocean waves. 20 years ago I was standing at this very same place, with my parents and my brother, but now it’s just me. When I was here last, my brother and I liked to swim, but more importantly, we wanted to try surfing. Everything about that day was almost the same as it was today, beauty and peace, and the crisp overcast. Perhaps that should’ve been our first warning though. Anyways, we took our boards into the water, and the waves provided us their own definition of fun and entertainment, and I can’t lie, the waves do know how to have fun. We continued on for about 30 minutes, but something didn’t feel quite right, the waves turned from playful banter to snide cruelty. However, we found the waves crashing upon us, it became more difficult to have fun. I, no longer having fun, decided to go back to shore, but my brother, around 4 years older than I was at the time, and the daredevil he was, decided to stay. Then, terror struck. The next wave hit him hard, and as he got up I noticed blood on his head. My parents were screaming in horror, as you’d expect, but he seemed out of it. Then the next wave hit, and he would get back up, with more blood, and again, and again. But this time he didn’t get up. We ran over, and he was gone. Gone to be one with the sea.

As I stand here in this same place twenty years later, now having a family of my own, I wonder what my parents felt. Not that I’ll ever know, they long passed. As I let the ocean breeze fill me with peace and remembrance, I hold this bouquet of flowers, and whisper to it “You know where to go.”, and I toss them out to sea.