Water Cleanses My Soul

My whole life I have been drawn to the water. When I was younger my family joked that I was a fish. In the summers you couldn't get me out of the water. I loved spending my summer days out at my Aunt Jo and Uncle Brooks' lake house. I'm pretty sure I learned to swim out at that lake. Sleepy Creek growing up was always my safe place. I loved being there and felt a calmness being there. And then when I was 14 my 5 year old cousin Christopher drowned there. It was the most horrific thing I had ever experienced - having a beloved child die. That was, of course, until that beloved child was my own. In the last few weeks I have developed a new found appreciation for my cousin Sandra. I never realized before how strong she was and how well she managed to deal with the loss of her son. For the rest of my life I will always think only of Nolan on March 30. I still daily take time to think of Nolan and grieve him and I am sure I will for many many days to come. Sandra, however, was not allotted that time. Sandra had another child - Christopher's twin sister, Brandy. Every year since Christopher's death Sandra cannot take the day to remember him and honor him. She has had to instead plan birthday parties and put on a happy face and celebrate Brandy. It was, after all, her birthday too. Even immediately following Christopher's death she had to pull herself together and smile and hug her daughter. Brandy was only five years old too. She didn't understand what all the crying was for and she certainly didn't understand where her brother had gone.

In some regards, I think well maybe this wouldn't be so hard if I had another child for then at least I could throw all my love towards that child. But another child makes it harder to grieve the loss. You have to be strong for the surviving child.

People say everything happens for a reason. My Nana and Granddaddy lost their firstborn child, Jewel, when she was two. Jewel died of pneumonia. Perhaps Jewel died so my grandparents could relay their learnings from her death to my cousins who would experience a tragedy of their own. My grandparents have all passed on. The last one when I was 19. My cousin Sandra came to see me at the hospital. She could hardly manage to be in the room. You could see in her eyes that my loss brought back all the memories of her loss. She doesn't need to be here now, because I learned what I needed to learn from her years ago when I watched her go through it. I watched how she handled Christopher's death and I watched her every year since then. She got through it and she has had happiness again. I will too. It makes me wonder who Nolan is going to help? Who is going to be touched and will learn something from Nolan's death? Who will draw strength from my experience? Perhaps that's why I write my feelings down. Maybe somewhere someone will read them and it will be exactly what they needed to read in order to help them through their own pain and suffering. I don't know the answer but I have to believe that there is one.

Somewhere out there, maybe even across the wide ocean of ours someone will be affected by Nolan's death. There will be a reason it happened. A reason far greater reaching than any I could imagine.


This afternoon Marshall and I spent some time on the boat for the first time this year. It was refreshing to be out on the Intercoastal even if only for an hour. We just rode around Wrightsville Beach and soaked up some sunshine and breathed in some salt air. There is something about the ocean that is just cleansing and healing. Every time I am near the ocean water I instantly feel more whole as if the ocean is pouring inside of me and filling up the whole which Nolan's death left in me.