Nothing but water

I spent quite a few hours today up on the bridge, mostly just looking out at the water. There was nothing to see, really. No land in sight. Just a wide, endless sea. And somewhere in that stillness, I realized I was missing Dave. Not in the usual passing way, but with that kind of ache that sits quietly behind your ribs and waits.

It caught me off guard. Being out here, far from shore, brought back the years when I’d be sailing with him and others. Not often since he died, just now and then. But enough for it to stick. When I found out I’d be going on this voyage, I started wondering how I might bring Dave along too. I think I meant it sentimentally. But now I see that this is where he’s always been, at least in my mind. Not in the metaphorical sense. Really here, in the water, the wind, the way time stretches.

Sometimes, I can picture him on a terrace in Grenada, with a drink in hand and some banter. But there’s no image that feels more like him than the sea. This is where he was most alive.

My sister, Kim once told me that when she started living on a boat, it felt like Dave was living with her. I remember feeling a twinge of envy. Like she had a stronger claim to his memory, to the life he might have led. She really lived on the water. I just borrowed it now and then.

But I think Dave would be amazed by all this. That, somehow, his love for the sea has carried on. I have to believe that Dave is still sailing, and maybe this love for the water, this strange sense of feeling at home I feel at this moment, is part of the legacy he left behind. And maybe this is a life he might have chosen, if the world had allowed him to choose more freely.

And maybe I’ve inherited it, in my own way.

I’m feeling a bit teary, yes, but it’s not sadness. It’s more like finding something I didn’t even know had gone missing.

(Written: 06.08.25)