Twenty-two years ago right now, my younger sister and I were on a ship off the coast of Alaska. Margaret’s two year crusade to banish the cancer cells in her brain, had depleted her physical and emotional bodies. She was reaching the end of her time on earth and my father had provided this expedition for her, as her dream had been to go to Alaska and see whales.
Margaret had been a potter, a triathlon athlete and the mother of two tiny boys when her first blasting head-ache struck on a family outing to see spring tulips in Washington state. She was 36. For the next two years I flew from Charleston to Seattle, leaving my own daughters with friends, for the two weeks out of every month that her chemo was tough or surgeries were scheduled.
Margaret, Margaret, my little sister, whose rage at being left in boarding school as a little girl resulted in a deeper connection and trust in animals than in humans. Her passion for horses morphed into one for whales, when she moved through her teens and twenties into her thirties.
Margaret and I had had a history of ships. When she was 5 and I was 7, we sailed across the ocean together, with our family to India. The beginning of a chapter that fed my soul while it represented pain for her. The one flower that grew from her feelings of parental abandonment was our relationship. I became Margaret’s mother protector in boarding school, as she was constantly getting sick and having to be in isolation in the infirmary. I was a master at sneaking in chocolates and getting her ‘freed’.
And now here we were, on the deck of a ship at dawn, Margaret snuggled in a blanket in her wheel chair, while I rolled her around and around, both of us peering out to the sea to spot a whale.
On August 10th, the ship docked. We sat on the floor together, waiting for her ride back to Seattle and my flight to Charleston. She was done. We held hands and she said to me “I can’t do this any more. I’m going to stop eating”. I said “I know”. She said “Good-bye”. And I said “Good-bye”. And her husband appeared to drive her home.
Margaret went into hospice a few days later and passed on the 21st.
We never did see a whale, but every time I see one now, I can see her beautiful face and I know that she is bicycling up mountains and swimming and running and eating almond rocha and loving her boys, as the vibrant men that they are. And on this August 6th, I know that every whale on the planet is diving and leaping for her.