We picked flowers on our walk to the beach, an afternoon to declare our birthday wishes and love for a beloved husband and daddy in the sand. I was trying to make it so perfect, as if the perfection of my sand art was a measure of my love… He knows, of course he knows, I ease into that knowing. Instead of trying to keep it all contained, smooth, and picturesque, I align with what this afternoon is truly about, a living expression of love and gratitude, an offering of ourselves in remembrance, in quiet open attentiveness to the mysteries and miracles of Spirit. And so I wrote to Mitch, my feelings, in the sand with the tip of a feather, witnessing my words being erased almost as quickly as I wrote them as my daughters happily played all around me, drew pictures of their own, messy, in-process, a practice in letting go, of surrendering to the impermanence of life, and embracing the playfulness of a child. There was a peace in the surrender to it not all being “perfect,” and in that I found real perfection; a beautiful way for us three, my daughters and me to honor Mitch’s Birthday, each in our own way, together, at the beach, in the sand, fully alive to the sheer preciousness of the afternoon, and feeling so free. We danced, we twirled, we wrote, we made art, we made sand angels, we prayed, we wished, we made an offering of flowers to the ocean in prayerful remembrance of a loved husband and daddy… It was reflective and sad and hopeful and joyful, and so very human.
