Sitting in my dining room in California, the Zoom scene on my laptop looked like a regular day at the beach in Hawaii. Smiling sweaty faces atop flower splashed sarongs lounged in beach chairs. Some stared peacefully toward the ocean.
Others got up, flopping through the golden sand in neon sandals, to shake hands and hug. Palm trees waved at me warmly from the distant background.
Then the beachgoers suddenly got very still. And their smiles dropped. A man in a Hawaiian shirt and lei stepped out in front of the crowd, standing tall between them and the twinkling sea. Clasping a great white conch between his leathered hands, he blew it slowly. Once. Twice. Three, and four times. Once in each direction. The low mournful bellows marking the hands of an invisible compass, bringing together spectators near and far.
“We’re all here,” he said, “to celebrate her life, and to say goodbye.”
I steeled myself for what was to come, raw and aching from learning recently that my family member had taken her own life.
Family, friends, and people I didn’t recognize tiptoed one by one to the center of the sandy stage. They looked ahead into the crowd, and then into the camera beaming in attendees, like me, hiding from the pandemic in rooms across the country.
They shared wistful stories about her. About her hearty, open laugh. Her constant concern and care for others. Her maddening and endearing habit of procrastination. I could see her there, on her favorite beach, through their words. Her long hair playing in the breeze, her eyes wrinkling into loud laughter.
All the while, I struggled with the impossibility that she was gone. And I wished that what I was watching on my small screen wasn’t real. That it was instead a matinee that would end.
Soon, the audience’s smiles cracked into soft tears. Mine fell quietly onto my keyboard. Some bent their heads silently, too heavy to continue speaking. Others belted out their pain through ukuleles, fighting to be heard over the drumming waves.
Then, through foggy eyes, I saw a family member walk hesitatingly to center stage, her black summer dress flailing behind her. Her notes shaking in her hands. This family member reminded us that she’d been planning to do this.
That it was a matter of time. “She struggled her whole life, and she struggled daily,” the family member intoned. “But she had a request for me. A request for all of us as we continue living with her in our hearts.”
Her request was simple. Go on a road trip, a long one. Go anywhere, go nowhere, as long as you take a friend. Be sure to open all the windows while playing your favorite song, and play it loud. Just drive together, until you don’t feel like it anymore.
The audience dug their toes into the sand and smiled in unison. I imagined that, like me, they were thinking that maybe she was on a drive listening to her favorite song now. All of us hoping that she was playing it loud, finally feeling free.
With the speeches and music over, the beachgoers retreated reluctantly from the eternal Hawaiian sun. They waved into the camera as they left, their pink faces glowing.
And with that, the Zoom was over, my screen suddenly empty. I closed my laptop and sat silently, staring into the gloom of my dining room. At first, I felt relief that I hadn’t been there, to feel that cruel, garish sun on my skin. I was grateful for the cocoon of Zoom. It protected me from the sun’s insensitive rays, and its attempt to burn its way into the dusk of her absence. It was too hard to face.
Yet more than that, somehow, I longed to be there with the somber beachgoers. To feel it all with everyone, no matter how painful. To be burned and broken together, building the shared strength to say goodbye.
Maybe being together is all we have, I thought. Our messy lives like crowded days at the beach, with sunscreen smeared awkwardly across our faces, surrounded by screeching children and cramped into salty beach chairs. With road trips to nowhere with friends when it all gets to be too much. And beneath it all, deep love followed inescapably by utter loss.
But maybe all we have — this web of darkness, silliness, and light — is a lot. Like misshapen grains of lonely sand that, once together, make a beautiful beach.
If you are having thoughts of suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1 (800) 273-8255 (TALK). You can find a list of additional resources at SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources.
Rose Carmen Goldberg teaches at the intersection of law and mental health at UC Berkeley School of Law. She is an award-winning writer, with commentary appearing in the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere. She has beloved family in Hawaii.