First published in la Joie Journal, Spring 2010
One spring afternoon, I was gathering stinging nettles with my mother on a beach a few miles from my house. We chose to pick the topmost leaves only, the ones that are the most tender. Because a slight tug on the leaf will pull up the whole plant including the roots, we used scissors to snip the leaves. Although stinging nettles have many medicinal uses, our purpose was to steam the leaves like spinach and have the dish for dinner as a spring tonic.
Out of necessity, I wore rubber gloves, but made the mistake of rolling my sleeves up. So it wasn’t long before a leaf brushed lightly against my arm, which began tingling in an unpleasant way that didn’t bode well for the next 24 hours. But I tried to ignore the sensation as we bent over the windswept rocky beach, intent only on the nettles.
They appeared in patches. Here one, there another. You know how it is when you pick anything – something always looks better just up ahead. And that is how we picked. My mother wandered on ahead in search of the perfect patch, while I continued harvesting a small area growing next to an enormous spruce log that long ago had rolled in with the high tide.
When I looked up, I couldn’t see her anymore. The beach of white rock, purple mussel shells, and green plants looked totally empty. I called her name, but heard nothing in return – just the sound of the soughing wind and some distant ducks in the channel.
The sun broke through in the sporadic way it does on cloudy days and as the light shone for a moment and illuminated the sky, the water, the beach – all that was around me – a thought came unbidden to me. Death must come like this. The person who dies has wandered around a bend and we can’t see her anymore even though she is still there, just up ahead. We are shocked because the person was just with us and then, in a moment, is gone, we think forever.
But is this true? Hasn’t she just passed out of immediate sight for a time? In that moment, I experienced one of those inexplicable shifts of perception into eternal time that happen when we least expect it. Perhaps the stinging nettle grounded my awareness and prompted this shift. Perhaps not. But something did change for me that afternoon on the beach. I know I’ll continue to mourn when loved ones die, but I also know that I’ll be comforted by the memory of my mother rounding the bend, still with me, just out of sight for a time.
