August 2025~
My Father, Charles F. Gray III, died 4 years ago today, August 26th. I am always in the South Pacific this time of year, with the ocean and the humpbacks, but the pandemic made this impossible from 2020-2022. This was a blessing; I was with him in the hours before he flew and was able to ease him towards a letting go he struggled with. My Mother died two months prior, after tending to him for the 6 years he descended into the isolated world of dementia and Parkinson’s disease. He was first placed in skilled care in 2015 when he began falling and became confused about where he was and who he was with. He never forgot us, his family, but he began to scramble time and place. He also suffered from congestive heart failure and his medical team warned us several times before his death that he was likely “very close.”
My Mother longed to outlive him. She was all levels exhausted from caretaking him, and the rollercoaster path of his decline and descent towards leaving the world exacerbated her congestive heart failure to an extent that she died first. We, his family and even his medical team, think he may have forged on for a few more years had he not been infected with the COVID delta variant. When he finally died, he died quickly.
I am writing this on the anniversary of his death while watching the streams of blues and greens that color the ocean here. Every now and then a whale blows or breaches near the soft horizon. When I first returned here in 2023, post pandemic, I carried “parting stones”, made from my parent’s cremains, with me. I offered them to the big blue love of ocean here, near a humpback “nursery” where mothers and babies were congregating and singing. It was within an hour of that offering that I “met” the 50-ton male escort eye-to-eye I wrote about in an earlier blog. It is rare for escorts to interact in this way; usually the moms and babes engage with the tiny humans bobbing about in their home. Our whale guide, a Tongan man who grew up with these magnificent wisdom carriers, looked at me when I returned to the boat and simply said “You were just blessed. He came to let you know your parents are ok. This is a very special interaction.”
In 2024, last year, I woke up on August 26th to a windy, rainy, dark gray day, and was on the verge of declining a space on the boat when I sensed my dad’s adventurous, wild Spirit. I knew if he were here, which he often wished he could be, he would say “let’s just go. It will be an adventure”. Before we left I invited him to offer me a sign of his presence. Mid-day, when I was swimming alongside a mother whale and her baby, a 6.9 earthquake rocked the ocean floor (and apparently all the surrounding islands). We were only 20 miles from the epicenter and the shearing of the earth made a sound, amplified by our watery environment, I will never forget. The ocean bed splitting and reshaping. The whales were gone in a flash, diving down with a strength and a swiftness I had never seen. Six whales breached all around the boat. When I realized what was happening, while the others swam to the boat, I dove down a little deeper, knowing this was likely the only time I would hear an earthquake under the ocean’s surface. My Dad would have done the same.
My parents are a primary reason for my annual retreats here. A friend introduced me to a whale guide in 2015 because she knew my love of whales, and Continuum, and saw the obvious connection between the two. When I watched a few videos of the whale swims, I knew I wanted to experience this. I first dreamed of whales when I was a teenager, and in the dream, my father and I were climbing bleachers on the pacific coast of the United States looking for a way out. He was growing older as we went up and down the endless bleachers. I realized he was withering, dying before my eyes. Feeling despair, I looked at the Pacific Ocean and four whales appeared, swimming in synchrony, their tails above the surface. I settled into my bones and knew it was going to be ok. When I awoke, and inscribed the dream, I realized I was going to be ok when my father, who I was very close to, left this world. I felt compassion from the whales.
Around 40 years later, my father’s first stay in skilled care was the winter of 2015. Having been warned he may decline quickly, I flew to him, and spent time with him, sorting through memories, and sharing little bits of dreams and news to help him connect to the here and now, and to me. His thinking, speaking and presence were garbled. He was always confused. When I showed him a video of the guide and the whales, he was mesmerized. We watched it over and over, and I told him I dreamed of doing this. He knew my love of whales, having bought me more than a few plush whales and whale watches and jewelry. In a moment of sudden crystal-clear lucidity, he said “Where do you have to go to do this?” I told him. He said, “When can you go?” I said “It’s in August. I’d like to go this year, but the flights are already too expensive, so I hope to go next year.” He paused, his eyes suddenly deeply thoughtful, looking straight into mine. I recognized this gaze. It’s the gaze of a father who loves his daughter expansively and unconditionally. His eyes reflected a witnessing, a being seen, that arises from the deepest bond of pure love. My father was, and is, the one person who understands me at a core, cellular, spirit level. He said: “If you really want to go, I will buy your plane ticket. But you must promise me one thing.” I asked him what that was. “Promise me you will listen to the whales and never stop listening. Sweetie, you have been waiting for this your whole life. If you promise to always listen, I will help you get to the whales.”
Thank you, Dad. I often hear your wisdom when I hear the whales breathe. And I am still listening.