Only Moments

A line drawn in the sand - on it a pebble. A wave washes in, and the pebble is gone.

I remember playing on the beach, building sand castles and collecting seashells. My baby brother crawling toward the water, giggling, and getting his diaper wet. 

It was a small beach in a conservation area, so we weren’t allowed to take anything with us when we left, but I always slipped a shiny pebble or broken seashell into my pocket when it was time to go home. Each one a memory stolen from a sacred place.

Now, they lie in a little jewellery box in a briefcase tucked under my bed. How long has it been since I last opened it? A couple of years at least. Yet, I remember every item. I’m sure there is even a ladybug’s corpse in there. 

Yeah, I collected insects as well. I can’t believe I know how they smell - fresh and bitter at the same time. My mom had the dreadful task of collecting the snails, caterpillars, and bugs that crawled out of my jacket pockets when I’d come home after a day spent outside. But she never protested.

On more than one occasion, my hands turned red and swollen from some colourful caterpillar’s attempt to defend itself with poison. That did not deter me. As a child I saw those creatures as magnificent things that had me transfixed, knowing they would transform into something beautiful one day. I was happy, hopeful, and the world was mine to explore.

These are the recollections that haunt me - the good days, the happy times, when the future was bright. Today, the rain pours outside and smatters against the panes while the occasional thunder booms. I look out the window, but there is only blackness, and when lightning strikes, all I see is my reflection.

This is me now: Gaunt, pale, ghostly. All it took was one phone call. One message of doom, distilled in a single word: “Malignant”. It is not the pain that frightens me, it is not the question of whether there is an afterlife that torments me, it is the quiet reflection that those moments of magic will soon be gone. That is what is too hard to bear.

A line drawn in the sand - my time on Earth, on it a pebble - me. A wave washes in, and the pebble is gone. That is how it goes for all of us.

I begin to wonder… Where do waves come from? Is it the wind caressing the sea? Does it start with the flapping of a seagull’s wings?

I’ve heard of waves in the ocean that stand a hundred feet tall. They are rogue, raging creatures constructed of chaos and foam that do nothing but crush and overturn ships, sending sailors to their deaths, never to be buried in hallowed ground. On the other hand, some waves are gentle and quiet - they lap soothingly at the white shores and leave little wave-formations behind. Yet, they are still waves, still harbingers of change.

Now, the greatest change has come to me - unexpected, but inevitable. Why was I not better prepared? Chaos rages in my mind, how can I face the fate of all mankind? The irony makes me laugh through my tears, why was there not a class in school to teach me how to deal with death?

I want to shut down the chaos, I want to regain order, but both must exist. Chaos and order, two opposites that create constant change. At its worst chaos is anarchy, at its best it is creation and life. At its best order is peace, at its worst it is stagnation and death. At their center, a beautiful dance takes place, filling the world with music and sublime harmonies, like the steady sound of the ocean.

I want to be in that center, at that place where life and peace meet. I have been there sometimes, but never long enough, never often enough. I remember the strongest of those moments, when I looked into my newborn daughter's eyes and thought, “No one in the world is more loved than you.” Her tiny fingers wrapped around mine, her glistening eyes that saw nothing but me. That was one of the highlights of my life.

Life is only a series of moments. Some are cherished and remembered, others are sunk deep in the sands of forgetfulness. Some moments that should have been forgotten are recalled, and others that should have been remembered are lost.

Sometimes we are blessed with a gust of wind that reminds us of a lost moment, a small shift in the wind unveils a grain of sand that glitters like stardust. Like a kiss tainted by tears. The scent of Mom’s perfume that she wore when you were young. A bout of laughter that nearly made you pee your pants. Perhaps, just the look in someone’s eye that made you feel loved.

The moments we remember are all we get, all that are worth anything when Death comes to take our hand and bring us across the sea to new shores, from whence we can never return.

As the rain drenches my lawn and the thunder drowns out the sound of dissonance in my ears, I remember the moments that I have given my children, for better or worse. The times they laughed, the times they cried. I remember those I have loved, those I have lost, and who I have gained. Moments shared or given to me by others, and those I have spent in quiet solitude, they are equal in value. Even the ones that have only ever existed in my mind, never shared with another soul or were too brittle to be spoken aloud. They come to me now and whisper, “it is your turn now.”

My life is drawn like a line on the shore, every grain of sand a moment. I, the pebble, drift along, pushed and pulled by the changing sea, not knowing when or how the line will end. A wave washes in, and now I know. Soon the moments will be no more.