I was walking along a rocky beach with a friend on her 49th birthday. We were enjoying a girls’ weekend at a cottage with BBQ, wine and hiking. We had celebrated my 49th the month before. As we picked our way over shifting stones, trying not to roll an ankle or stumble headlong into the line of driftwood at the high-tide mark, we discussed how we would be turning 50 the next year.
Fifty. That number, that age, is weighted with tears and laughter, music and silence, pauses and experiences. Some scars and wrinkles we bear with shame, some with pride.
As I stop to get my bearing, I balance on two semi-solid, salt-grey stones. I notice a long, slim piece of driftwood a little ahead of me and to my right. I step carefully, making my way over to pick it up. I examine it as I lean on it for balance. I am 5’8″ and it reaches my armpit. A slight notch at the top fits my hand comfortably.
It is warm from the mid-morning sun and beautifully marked as if some master craftsman had delicately and lovingly attended each part to make it so. I test its strength and it is sturdy and unbending, slightly bowed as if honouring the wind that once tickled its leaves. It is capable enough to bear my ample weight as I try to balance on the wobbly rocks. It’s solid enough to steady me even when my leg betrays me, the one that had been broken and fixed with a plate and screws 16 years before. It’s strong in spite of all that it must have been through on its journey to meet me on this beach on this day as I contemplate my own age and weathered frame.
The face of the wood is partly smoothed by sea, sand and stone, while artfully etched and aesthetically scraped in random spots. It was once young and supple supporting leaves, perhaps fruit, and woodland creatures. It gave and received life until, felled by an axe or storm, it landed in the sea and was tossed about on the waves. It had been bleached by burning salt and sun, ignored by the sea that beat it about. The sea’s strange creatures were oblivious to the existence of this forlorn stick. It wandered adrift and alone without the anchoring roots that once nourished and provided support. It had made its way up a rocky shore to be battered, reshaped and cast down. The cold, churning water left it there, foaming and roaming off to find another body to break, unaware of the mess it leaves in its wake. I don’t know how long the stick had remained here. I found it this day among the flotsam and jetsam. With the other driftwood and castoffs of humankind, it waited. As it wept the loss of its roots and leaves and woodland friends, it lingered.
We meet on that shore, the steadying driftwood and I. Subconsciously, I recognize a weary soul in need of purpose, lost and still adrift on solid land. The rest of the walk is stepped with more confidence. When my friend and I arrive back at the cottage and start packing the car for the trip home, I cannot leave this driftwood behind. I feel a need of it, even though my walk on the beach is done. So home it came with me, to stand in the corner of the room where I get ready for work each day.
Maybe it knew something I did not at the time in the way that loss and sorrow can attune one to the cosmic way of things. It may be, somehow, it was aware that in one month’s time my husband would start to get headaches, that the cancer he fought two years before had returned. Perhaps it knew that, even as I walked on that lovely beach, laughing with my friend, the metastatic melanoma was growing inside my love’s right frontal lobe.
That beautiful piece of driftwood had been one of the first things I saw as I prepared myself for each day of the next seven months until my husband was gone. He has been gone six months and it has stood silently in support as I continue to grieve.
I am weathering the storm of sickness and loss with the help of a silly stick. It reminds me each morning that, in spite of age, of storms, of drifting without touching ground, through waves of pain and love and sorrow, the seasickness of hope and despair, that this old body and heart can offer strength and balance to another, to myself. I still have a beauty and a purpose, though I will always mourn the loss of my nourishing roots and my wind-tickled leaves.
I am alone, yes, and, sure, on occasion lonely. I don’t dwell on the constant absence of a significant other in my life; however, I certainly miss having an Other. There is something in this kind of relationship that is different than a friendship, something that touches deeper. There is something that awakens your soul in a new way to make you stronger and more, well, You than you have ever been. 
Eclectic Popcorn 