One in Spirit. One in Love.

“On that day, Jesus went out of the house and sat down by the sea.” Matthew 13:1

I remember my father who loved the sea. Even when he was younger, he was always planning to build a boat. Before I was born, he acquired marine plywood to build one. But when my mom and dad were expecting me, the marine plywood was made into a crib! He had to wait several more years before he was able to build his first sailboat, an Optimist. It was quite a small dinghy and it was clearly for young people to learn to sail, and sail we did, making figure eights in the water. 

Daddy said many times that he felt closest to God when he was sailing. He said jokingly, that if he would write a book, it would be entitled, “Everything I Learned I Learned from Sailing”. Or something like that. When he was older and not able to handle a sailboat by himself, he would be so happy if Luigi, my husband, would bring him out for a run. Luigi said daddy was like a kid. Sometimes he would “wheeeee” in joy as the boat raced across the waves. 

But he was also content to just sit on a chair on the sand, and keep his eyes straight towards the sea. He could stay like that for hours. Sometimes we would accompany him in his reveries. Sometimes we could be noisy and he would happily join in. 

How wonderful it would be to find daddy again sitting by the sea but he has passed on ahead of us, and we will meet him again one day. But if we sit down quietly, we CAN sit beside Jesus. It can be down by the sea, up on a mountaintop, or just in our room. Hopefully we gaze in the same direction, one in Spirit. One in love.