The Water that Breaks

"Sweetheart, you must understand. There is no true parting. We are all joined. In life, in death, in the spiritual existence of All. The sea did not seperate your mother and father, it joins us. For there is not a barrier you cannot pass. Now I too, must walk a new path."

I sat at the cliff facing away from our village. In these times the sea was more inviting. On our island disease had been eradicated centuries ago. No one was hungry, as long as there was water. We were one of the missing links of evolutions. A mixture of a hybrids, mixotrophs. We who could feel the joy of taste from food, but also create our own energy force without it. That could survive all weathering conditions...You'd think it were paradise. But we were not free of grief.

It was clear still, that memory. But only because I was too scared to let go of it. In our home in the trees, Nana laid in her bed, dying. I held Nana's hand, she was already at that threshold, beyond where I could reach, but I held her hand.

"I don't care. Nana don't leave me, give me more of your time", I cried.

"My Babydoll, do not fear letting go, for you cannot hold on. Do not be selfish. You shall always have me. My physical time is borrowed. But time is forever."

"No, I'm not ready. Don't let go, don't leave me. I don't understand any of that. I can not let you go yet," I pleaded. But Nana was already closer to the other side, only partly existing in life to give me her final words.

"Babydoll, it is not your border to cross, it is mine. I've made my choice, and the time has come. Good bye, guide yourself now."

But there, I can't bring myself to remember what I did do afterwards. The announcement, the burial, the memorial the first anniversary, I don't know how I got through it. Because it all seems like it was just yesterday. Life's been monotonous, and I've been stuck in the same routine. But today grandmother, no Nana, I will visit you.

I stood, and turned back to my village. Most of the people in my village wear aprons. We were as self-sustaing as our bodies. The people took pride in manual labor, simplicity, and innovation. Complex irrigation systems flowed through the town, the water powered homes, fed crops, flowed into lakes and over scenic bridges. In some places there were pipes made out of hollowed trees, water wheels, canals, and even piping that flowed underground.

I walked up a hillside, and I could feel everyone's eyes following me. I could hear whispers of "Where is she going?". But as I climed that hill side more steadily, there could only be one place I was going, the Garden Plain.

Our graveyard, the Garden Plain, is an area of the island where there are few trees, but many flowering plants. After 2 years of a person's burial, we "plant a new seed". I opened the picket-fence gate, I brushed by many viny plants and various cycling plants, and continued into the west of the garden where an almost barren circular patch of earth laid. I dug into the earth with my hands, the earth under my nails cool. From around my neck I pulled a pouch and emptied it into my hand. I held the seed for a while, the seed I held onto for an entire year and pushed it into the risen earth. "It's been three years, I am sure I made you wait enough. Thank you Nana. I am so sorry that I am so late." I spoke to the seed, that now served as my Nana's headstone, where a new flower coould grow. Here I shed the last tears I would shed for many years, and that would serve as this new seed's first water.