Seasick with Eternity

November 20, 2008—Ten years ago last night, my father woke up, restless, in the dark. My mother said he said it wasn’t really pain he felt—more like some deep uneasiness. She took him to the hospital. He died.

More than 1,000 miles away that night, I waked up, as well. It was sudden and distinct, but somehow not quite startling. Most like a shift in pressure—it reminds me most of being underwater, undersea, and feeling everywhere along your body how everything can altogether shift, as, above, a large strong wave rolls by.

I’d felt something like this once before, when I was young and wanted very much to die. One night and all at once I felt something I’ve since come to name “the universal shrug”—some large recognition of my deep despair, some sorrowful permission. It was as if I stood up on the deck of some ship sailing out to sea, as if I were there, leaning on the railing, considering a leap…until a wave rolled underneath and tipped me forward suddenly. On instinct, I recoiled.

Reading recently, I was reminded of the obvious and overlooked: eternity is more than simply endless—it’s beginningless, as well. In Here and Now, Henri Nouwen points out the absurdity of a belief in some eternal life that starts the moment that we die. Eternal life, if such a thing exists, is already here, and everywhere around us. As it has always been.

I imagined then, life as we can see it as a kind of Ark or ocean liner, floating on a deep, wide, endless and eternal sea. Our boat has decks and promenades galore—grand stairways and dim galleys, cabins and casinos, swimming pools and spas and everyone we’re ever going to meet. It is a world unto itself…until the sea rolls underneath us.

It’s been a tough week here at our house: the anniversary of my father’s death, and of the death of Girlfriend’s best and oldest friend. Ten years ago this week, my best friend’s husband’s father also died—she drove from Williamsburg to Covington, then on to Alexandria, paying her respects to mortal men who raised two people that she loved. This was no small pilgrimage.

This all, within the selfsame week that John F. Kennedy was killed. As our private losses drift off into history, history surges back at us: everywhere we look, there is this dying. Eternity is tossing us around, and we’re a little seasick from it all.

One night last year, Girlfriend and I both came down with the flu within the same half-hour. We took turns in our single bathroom, emptying our guts and bowels—and forged a sort of gross and miserable camaraderie.

This week is not like that, at all. These storms have driven us both inward and apart.

There is little we can do but wait it out. Even eternity passes, in some way or another. We will soon sail into smoother seas and better weather. We will stumble up on deck, into the sun again, greet each other—grateful and relieved—and settle once more into journeying together.

© 2008 Melissa Capers