What if there was... nothing?
o
This was a defining moment in my life, some 17 years ago now.
My father insisted we all go, all of us, even the most of us who didn’t want to go. My mother had died in January. In March, my father wanted to continue the Gulf Shores road trip tradition.
But I had never gone to Gulf Shores; it was the one time of year my parents went off on their own, met up with my father’s brother and sister-in-law and left the little town of Interlochen, left their grown children untethered for a week.
In the year before, it had also been a week away for my mother from chemo appointments and blood cell counts and fear whenever the phone rang. It turned out to be the last trip she would take to Gulf Shores.
The following year the drive down - without her - took 21 hours.
The weather matched my mood, gray skies following us from Michigan down through Ohio and into the heart of country music. Colorless cloud banks as far as we could see, an indefinable landscape. Where the hell were all these hydrangeas I’d been hearing about?
I shoved my pillow up against the car window and my forehead slid until it met the coolness of the glass. I looked out and up, the sky everywhere and nowhere.
My mother had been gone only 2 months, and it hit me again: I would never speak to her again, never sit in the blooms of her back deck with her again, never plan a trip with her again.
The grief came like this, in waves. It would slip away and let me resume some normalcy, let the dog out to play, straighten the boys’ room, cut a sandwich into triangles, then it would rush at me, invisible, and slam into me.
The smallest thing would set it off, like this, when my forehead hit the window’s coolness, a singular sensation in a quiet moment: Evidence of life.
Sometimes I could stop the wave when I felt the swell rising. But other times like this, it was on me without warning, full-on, a shove to my stomach; my mother everywhere, my mother nowhere.
It was unfathomable, that nothingness. I would sometimes reach out and squeeze a fistful of air, trying to feel that nothing. Or hold my hand still to feel nothingness around it. But it was impossible to feel nothing. I tried, then, in that car, to see nothing, my forehead against the cool glass and my eyes taking in the blur of the world going by at 70mph.
Is this what nothing looked like? Where was my mother if she wasn’t here? If I couldn’t see heaven, how could it be real? What if there was actually nothing?
The thought was unbearable.
I fought to keep my breathing smooth and my throat quiet as the waves came. I didn’t wipe my eyes or dry my nose, trying to stay still enough that I wouldn’t be detected, wouldn’t have to hide it, wouldn’t have to stop or pretend or concede my grief.
The kids kept chattering and the radio kept playing and the wheels kept turning as if my mother had never died. I felt the squeezing in my chest, the shove, the push, the disbelief of it all.
And Tim reached over and took my hand.
I didn’t look up, and I didn't respond. We drove the rest of the way through Tennessee like this, his hand over mine, my forehead against the window, the tears falling, our children laughing.
~
In Gulf Shores, I walked the beach alone the first morning. I thought I would run, because I felt like blowing the doors off, some unknown energy inside needing to get worked out. I wasn't much of a runner but out there in the early dawn, it seemed possible.
The water snuck up to the shore, thin layers coming up, then falling away. I let their edge set my route, running as close as I could to the waves, dodging them, sometimes a running leap sideways to avoid them. Shells, thousands, millions of them, marked the high tide. I ran past them, over them, crunching them under my feet. I felt shameful for not stopping to admire them and worse to crush them, possibly a full sand dollar lying there for all I knew, the very thing my mother had brought home for me last year.
But I didn’t stop and didn’t look. I ran. The blues of the sky were gray and, in the distance, I could see a pier. I’ll run that far, I thought. And as I did, a pink arrived. The world was turning.
My legs started to burn. I’d run until the sun sits entirely above the water, I thought next, because the pier was too damn far.
I passed a half dozen people, all of them with their heads down, studying the treasures brought to shore overnight. But I ran looking out, over the impossibility of the ocean.
It was the first time I’d ever been to the ocean, ever seen one. Yes, at age 32. And, I wanted to be alone with the enormity of it.
I couldn’t see the other side. I couldn’t see where it ended. I couldn’t see the bottom. I couldn’t seem to hold it, even as I reached in to touch it.
That first morning, all alone, running until my heart couldn't hammer any harder, I was finally forced to stop. And standing there, catching my breath, the ocean made me think of heaven.
Heaven.
Yes, THIS was a picture of nothing.
I ran my eyes out over the water until I saw nothing, my eyes losing focus, the colors fading to infinity, the top and bottom of the world fading together.
I couldn’t see heaven either, I thought. I couldn't see its insides, its far side, its bottom, could I? But - could it be? - still here, like the ocean? Enormous and endless, but its edge near?
"Is there ANYTHING out there?" I finally spoke - a quiet begging in the silent morning.
A moment later, the ocean responded.
A manta ray jumped, clearing the water in a soaring leap. Black diamond wings followed by a thick tail and a flash of white underbelly. The ocean suddenly opened with a spray of water and a show in the morning sun.
There it was.
Proof.
An entire world of beauty and wonder and life right there, just below the surface. Even if I could see none of it from where I stood.
My heart hammered again - but this time it was hope barreling through my chest.
🩵
Written in the Mitten 🩵 by Kandace Chapple is a reader-supported publication. I often write about grief and hope! To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber. (Dog hair included free of charge.)