What seems a very long time ago now, I had a Sister. Not by blood, I’m an only child by blood, but a Sister by something somehow stronger than blood.
Friendships – even strong friendships – are odd things, and sometimes you find that even the strongest of them has simply melted away, and you are left with no clue what you did, what you said – if indeed you did or said anything – to make that bond break.
The broken edges are very sharp…at first. Sharp enough that you cut the softness of your imagination on the harshness of the memory. You spend hours, days, months, trying to figure out why…and then, one not so very special day, they don’t hurt anymore. They may sting a little, but that terrible soul wrecking pain is gone – melted away just like the relationship that once caused it. And you don’t even realize that it’s happened, until one day you find that your thoughts have changed from,
Why would they leave me? What did I do? What did I say wrong?
To
I wonder whatever happened to…
And you resign yourself, as best you can, to the lack of closure, and in doing so find that you have sutured the worst of the wounds shut yourself. And you realize that you think of the whole thing more as a loved one who passed the veil years ago, whom you miss, but no longer shed tears over…because no one can mourn forever.
But the memories don’t go away; and for me Glacier Bay will always be about Saerwan. When I first came to Alaska, I was overwhelmed by the intensity of it, the vastness, the sheer scale of the world around me. I felt very small, and very hemmed in, a water girl surrounded by so much earth that it felt as though it were weighing down on me. Glacier Bay would make me dizzy and shaky, and I couldn’t explain why. With Saerwan, I didn’t have to. So Glacier Bay became a ritual of calming conversation, second hand cigarette smoke, zen herbal tea and sisterhood.
I still drink zen herbal tea, I avoid cigarette smoke where at all possible, I still feel somewhat hemmed in by the awe-striking beauty of glacier bay. And sometimes, on a very rare occasion these days, I still miss the woman who was once my Big Sister…
But not as much as I once did…
Because no one has the strength to mourn forever.