So - A Strange Story

The Magical Beach

At my age we have to be careful of the men in white coats brandishing strait jackets.

Especially when it comes to the unexplainables.

I verbalized an extraordinary occurrence to only three people.

The first dismissed me out of hand and changed the topic of conversation immediately and never got back to what I had experienced.

The second asked me quite seriously and with concern: Did you hear voices in your head?

The third nodded carefully and said: Oh, I totally get that.

So here goes:
I was on this spectacular beach on a gorgeous day sitting in my beach chair. A young man passed with his dog and we exchanged pleasantries. This youngish black dog looked me right in the eyes as he walked past, he was on a leash. Dogs do this with me sometimes as if desperate to communicate their thoughts.

The young man went a distance away on the sand, the tide was out. He began to train his dog. I am familiar with that having trained a few. All the commands obeyed were rewarded with tiny treats. He was good, the commands were simple, one word, clear. Memories flooded me. There is nothing like a quivering dog, rooted in a stay, waiting for a release. The joy shared by trainer and trainee is immeasurable.

I just couldn't stop the tears. I was alone so there was no one to see, feeling utterly sad, missing my Ansa so much, how she loved the beach, how we frolicked, she was a great paddler but hated swimming. And paddle she did once she saw water with this wonderful grin on her face. Sometimes tears can hurt right down to the toes. They did for me that day.

A large perfect feather wafted down onto my lap and I held it to my cheek and stopped crying. And clearly I immediately sensed I could walk the beach, an impossible challenge.

So holding the feather I got up off the beach chair and walked and walked without pain and then turned around and walked back to the chair. An unimaginable feat. I held the feather for a while and then carefully inserted it into my camera bag for safe keeping and walked a little more, I came back to the camera bag and the feather had vanished. I searched high and low everywhere within quite a radius, no feather.

I had the strongest message again that the feather was merely a temporary sign of greater things to come, to stop hunting. To be still.

Which I did.

Three days later, I was having breakfast with my guest-friend in my local diner when I looked up and standing there in front of me was a person I love dearly but who has been long absent from my life for many, many years. We both burst into tears. This reunion has been exploding with joy ever since. In ways I could never have imagined. This remarkable event is now all connected to the dog, Ansa, the tears and the feather in my mind.

Coincidence? Well yes, says my reality check.

But something else? Well, perhaps yes. Though I am far from being a woo-woo person.

But this whole experience?

Inexplicable.

Mr. Geoffrey – a Love Story. Part 3 of 6

See Part One Here
See Part Two Here

I can't pinpoint the exact moment it progressed. Progressed to what, you might ask and I can't still answer that. All I know is love is in there somewhere. And intimacy. And compassion. And passion. I remember little snapshots of our conversations. The reading time became shorter and our conversation lengthened into our time together.

“Can I tell you what happened?” he said out of the blue one day, taking off the thick lenses that shrouded his eyes.

I nodded. I sensed in my bones we were going outside of this room to somewhere dark.

He stood and took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeve. And I knew what it was even though I'd never seen one before. The tattoo stood out stark on his arm. I wanted to touch it and then didn't.

“You've heard of the death camps of Auschwitz?”

“No, yes,” I hesitated, “I haven't heard the names of the camps”. I told him we had quite a few Jewish children in my school in Cork, their parents had escaped death camps. We envied the children as they did not have to attend morning or evening prayers, religion classes or mass or retreats or novenas. Some of us had even asked about conversions to Judaism to the derision of the nuns. He laughed at this. A rich laugh of such delight that I joined in.

“Well,” he said slowly, “I was liberated as a young man from that camp.” he rolled down his sleeve and put his jacket back on. “You will understand I can't speak of what I had to do to survive and the loss of ....” and he couldn't finish. He bowed his head.

Another picture:

“You're expecting a child?” he said, again out of nowhere one day. I had kept it hidden. In those days you could be fired if you got pregnant. In those days you had to tell at a job interview if you even intended to have a child. In those days there was no maternity leave or daycare or maternity benefits of any kind.

“Don't worry, “ he added, “even though I'm your boss, I won't tell anyone. Work as long as you want.”

Another afternoon:

“My wife is an invalid in a wheelchair. I grieve for her, she loved the opera and the ballet and midnight jazz and art gallery openings and now that is all gone. Between my nearly blind status and her crippling disease we don't go out anymore. We enjoy the radio together. You must listen to CBC.”

Every time he used “must” to me I would later make a note in my small notebook. He introduced me to CBC and its delights - “Morningside”, “As it Happens” and classical music programmes and radio theatre of all kinds along with the jazz and folk music shows.