Marking days and paying tribute

It's been a while since I have been here. Despite my absence, Finding Felix has been on my mind, but you don't know that if I don't update regularly, so here I am and I do plan to come back sooner next time.

There have been things happening. Among the daily sadness that clings to my days. There have been reasons for tears and some for laughter too. October 13 was hard. It was my brother's birthday and he wasn't beside me. It's happened before. He has been traveling and away and we have spent special days apart before now. But this was always going to be different.

It was so so hard without him.

I wanted to mark the day by doing something special. A special tribute all of my own. But I didn't know what.

I spent many hours and days considering what that would be. The very best thing to do on that day. And then somehow, in a moment of stillness, it came to me. Of all of the things I considered, when it came to me, I knew it was right. Especially because he would have agreed and this would have been what he would have chosen for me. Because it would be the one thing that would be the least comfortable and he would have laughed at that. He was my older brother after all. And a natural stirrer.

And so, on the weekend following his birthday, as the sun lifted in the morning sky and the tide was low, I walked to one of his favourite beaches. I looked out across the water, past the pier toward the heads and squinted my eyes against the reflections on the water. I undressed slowly, stripping down to my bathers and breathed in the cool morning air. As I walked slowly toward the water, I was thinking of my brother and my love for him. And my awe at him. And his strength. And how his absence has left a whole my heart that will never be filled.

As I dove into the icy water and the shock of the cold took my breath away, I cried salty tears into the sea. And as I floated and let the rise and fall of the waves lift me in the sea's gentle rhythm, I knew he would have thought it the perfect way to mark his birthday.