I was standing with my brother on a cliff above the secluded stretch of beach near his home where we released our mother’s ashes, a place we returned for many years to feel her presence. How had I never considered the possibility that he’d sell his house by the ocean, where I most felt her? At this duet of farewells, a high tide was keeping us from descending to the beach. I was drowning in grief. I was losing her all over again. Suddenly I heard her voice, scolding but tender. "Sweetheart, you returned me to the sea. I’m everywhere."
Ellen Blum Barish the author of the memoir Seven Springs. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times’ “Tiny Love Stories,” Brevity, Still Point Arts Quarterly, Tablet, and Ritualwell. www.ellenblumbarish.com Linked In: ellenblumbarish Instagram and X: @ellenblumbarish