I am now sitting on the train, staring out the window. My reflection in the glass reminds me of how miserable I look. When was the last time I smiled? A real smile. However, I will not be thinking about you. I will not give you the satisfaction, as if you would need it in Heaven.  I could wish you in a worse place, but you were good, and it was too easy for me to drown looking into the ocean of your eyes. 

The train stops at the station, and I stand up, pick up my bag, and hop off. Instinctly, I make my way towards the shore. The ocean air stings my nose and throat. Somehow it even makes my back. I am not used to these long train journeys anymore. I keep making my way back to this beach, even after three years. 

My feet take me to the sand beach. My knees wobble and my shoes sink. I close my eyes. The breeze is stiff, but it gives me pleasure. The ties were always high this time of the year and you liked that, especially early in the morning. I’d be at home, preparing your breakfast, hot coffee and toast without butter.  I leave my bag on the sand and want to taste the salt on my mouth, the way I would when I would kiss you after you came out of the water with the salt on your lips and tongue. 

What am I experiencing here? It is not being lost in thought, but lost in memories that are less in my mind but on my skin, in my mouth, in my nose. I can feel your absence. It is the curse of having loved, of still loving. 

From below the cliff my eyes trace the ledge, as I walk when suddenly I see something that resembles a tree, no wait, it’s not a tree. It’s someone perched precariously on the edge of a cliff. I shout with all my might, but my voice dies in the waves. He doesn’t hear me. Alarmed by how close the man is to the edge, I start rushing up the incline, calling out. “Hey! Hey, stop!”

The man doesn’t seem to hear at first, too focused on something. My nerves are in a panic, my heart in my stomach.

“What are you doing? Get away from there!” I scream, I fear desperation and exhaustion evident in my voice.

“What’re ya at? Get away from that!” I shout, the fear and pure exhaustion plain as day in my voice.

            As I lunge forward and grab his arm, pulling him back roughly.  The man is startled, gasping for air, shouts “What the hell? What are you doing?”

I am breathing heavily “I—I thought you were going to jump.” I gasp.

The man looks into my eyes, and starts laughing, still shocked “Jump? Who me?” He says and then gestures at the canvas fluttering slightly in the breeze. “I was painting, you nearly threw me off with your heroic rescue mission,”

I was looking over the edge to get an angle I wanted to paint. You almost threw both of us off the cliff. But clearly he’s not angry. He’s sort of laughing. Now that I look around, I see the easel with a canvas on it, a palette with paints next to it on the ground. I blush in embarrassment.  “I look like…”, I hear myself say. I know that my nervousness is about what happened three years ago. But I force myself to not thing about anything. I look at him his eyes, capturing the dancing of the light, a distante sailboat floating at the edge of the horizon. 

This is embarrassing. I can feel the heat coloring my cheeks, I turn around and then at him again, “I… I thought… I mean, you were right on the edge, it looked like—” This cliff, this breeze and this shore always bring back the haunted memories. I just didn’t wanted history to repeat itself this time around. I wanted to act, not freeze but act and make a difference.

I somehow gather courage to look at the man, who is now wiping paint from his hands, sighing. “I like to paint the ocean, I was not trying to kill myself,”

 “Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

The man runs his hands in his hair and smiles “It’s okay. It’s always nice to know there are people who care enough to save a stranger,” The man pauses, then he takes his time to look at me, more closely. “Are you, okay? You look…worse off than me.”

I let out a short, dry laugh, shake my head. I glance toward the ocean, the sound of the crashing waves filling the silence between us. “Yeah…I guess”

The man looks at me, sits on the ground, and pats the gravel. He  gestures to  me to sit beside him. “Do you want to talk about it? I’ve got a few more hours of light to kill, and I promise I will be a better company than seagulls.”

I don’t even hear him properly, I don’t know what is going on, but I plop down beside him anyway. Who is this guy? And why is he inviting me to sit with him? I should just stop overthinking. I try to distract myself from my thoughts and stare at the horizon for a while, neither speaking. The wind is cool, salty, and the waves rise and fall in a rhythmic pattern.

“It’s okay you know; you don’t have to talk about it.” The man says, and the words pierce through my ears because I do want to talk about it, but I also just want to stop thinking about it. How much will I have to talk about it just so my brain has exhausted all the memories.

I want to let go.

My eyes fill with tears. I realise nothing has changed, the same ocean breeze, the salt water, I can almost feel the dampness of your hair under my palms. I stare at the endless blue above and below. I was a bold lover, breathing passion. Now I am half in love and longing for a peaceful death by the shores of your eyes. I wish you realized how easy it was to fall into the ocean that is your eyes.

“Sorry, what?” The man says. I look at him. “You said something?” He asks, his eyes genuinely looking for answers in mine.

“I want to let go” I say.

“Ahhhh” he sighs, and continues to stare at me, his eyes soften. “Grief’s a tricky thing,” he says.

I nod and look back at the ocean.

“I feel like I am underwater” I finally manage to say. “Time doesn’t feel real, but everything is moving, it’s slow and blurry. It’s hard to find the surface and I can’t even swim,” I say and look at him. He is looking at me, waiting. I continue “Everyone keeps telling me it’ll get better, that I’ll move on, but I can’t even picture a future without him”.

“Maybe you’re not supposed to ‘move on.’ Maybe you’re just supposed to keep going, piece by piece, until things start to make sense again. Or at least hurt less,” He says.

“You sound like you’ve been through it too.” I let out a soft laugh.

“Who hasn’t?” He smiles back. “I am an Artist, it’s like a rite of passage. Broken heart, a pencil and a paper, absolute best combination,”

We both laugh. The air feels light, the tides have calm down. He looks at the sky and closes his eyes.

“Why do you come here?” I ask.  The man shrugs. “I just like to paint the ocean,” he says. “And I have made friends with all the seagulls here, except that one” he says and points at one seagull far away on the cliff.

I laugh.

“I am serious,” he says. “I bring them fries every time I come here” he says and fetches his duffle bag. He takes out a McDonalds happy meal box.

“Aren’t you a little too old for a McDonald’s happy meal?” I ask.

“Excuse you” he says. “You are never too old for McDonald’s Happy Meal”.

I tilt my head and frown. He smiles at me.

“Papa!” someone calls.

We both turn around. I see a little girl running towards us and calling, “Papa, the seagulls are here” she says, exhausted from all the running. “Look I also found this new shell, a stone and then I got this flower for you,” she drops the seashell, stone onto the man’s lap, completely oblivious of my existence.

“Thank you dear,” he says kindly and takes the flower.

“Fries fries!” she calls out. And he produces the paper bag to her, and she runs away towards the shore. I am perplexed. I stare at him. He smiles and produces the flower to me. I look at the bunch of white yarrow in his hands. I take it, smell it and put it behind my ear.  

“She’s my niece,” he says and I listen intently. “I lost my brother few years ago,” He speaks.

“I am sorry,” I say.

He shakes his head “It’s okay, I am okay now. It was hard at the beginning, her mother left her when she was 2, so I took her in. I didn’t know anything about being a father. But now….” He trails away. We both look at the little girl, no more than 5 chasing around seagulls. We both smile.

We all have our baggage. Mine’s probably not much different from his. We both look at the waves again. “I used to come here with him, watch him surf. It was our spot… but now it feels like it’s his. Like I don’t have the right to enjoy it without him. But I still come here, this time of the year,”

“I understand,” he says. “I will not say it gets better, but I truly hope it does,” he says and I smile, a real smile.

“Maybe this is your first step. Reclaiming the things you used to love. Making them yours again” he adds, his voice beaming with sunshine. I sit quietly, basking in his warmth. The idea sits heavily with me. I never thought of it that way. For a long moment, we both sit in silence again, the wind rustling through our hair.

The man stands up, “Well, thanks for the save, even if I didn’t plan to kill myself today”

Ah, I am so embarrassed.  

“I’m staying at this little cabin down the shore for a few days. If you want to… you know, talk more, or just not feel like a ghost, come find me,” he offers.

I try to stand up too, but the gravel under my shoes ruffle and I lose my balance, he caches me, wraps his hands around me. “Now we are equal” he says, and we both laugh.

“I am really sorry for assuming the worse,” I say and stand up straight.

The man smiles. “It’s okay, it’s not every day I get rescued from a non-existent suicide attempt,” he says and picks up his bag. “Maybe next time, you can help me finish this piece. I think you could use a distraction,” he says gesturing the canvas.

“Maybe,” I say faintly and look at the ocean.

“I will see you around” he says, and I just stare at him. I don’t know what to do when he smiles at me. I nod gently. And he starts walking back. I watch him walk along the shore, the waves retreating behind him, leaving soft imprints in the sand. The wind tousles my hair, and for the first time in what feels like a lifetime, I feel lighter. Not healed, but no longer weighed down by the constant pull of nostalgia.

The flower falls from behind my ear, but as I catch it, I realize—I’m not just holding the flower. I’m holding the parts of me I thought had drowned long ago. Memories, love, loss—they swirl together, no longer overwhelming, but something I can carry.

Without thinking, I take a breath, deep like the ocean, and start running after him. Not just to return the flower, but to see what else might bloom. Because for the first time, I’m not chasing the past—I’m chasing the possibility of something more. Something new, like a tide rising, pulling me toward the horizon.

Maybe it really is not about moving on. Maybe it’s about moving with the tide, wherever it takes me next.