That feeling you get when looking out at the sea… Right? Do you feel it too?
There is nothing like the sea to bring me inner peace and a profound sense of freedom.
Mum was a also a sea lover. At the age of 68, she sold her apartment in town and didn’t know where to live. She just knew she had had enough of her old life, freedom was calling her.
She contacted a friend who had a holiday apartment at the beach and asked her if she could stay for a while. That friend was then living in Africa so she told mum she could stay for a year. Mum was so happy, it had always been her dream!
I visited her there with the kids and I was stunned to see the changes in my mother. She was vibrant, happy, tanned, had lost weight and was more positive than ever! Living by the sea really had transformed her. She had freed herself from an outdated life style that was making her unhappy, grumpy and turning into a bitter old woman.
As I talked to her on those holidays, she shared about her desire to live in that area permanently but was certain it wouldn’t be possible. It’s located in the north of Belgium where people speak Vlaamish. Mum knew a bit but wasn’t that fluent. Also, it’s the posh area on the little Belgian seaside, where houses are often valued at millions of euros.
As I was chatting with mum, I encouraged her to trust it would be possible. “Look where you already are living”, I said to her, “you’ve already shifted so much! You never believed this would happen right? ”
We started browsing for rentals online, ‘just for fun’. We looked a few kilometres south from where she currently was and to our surprise, the prices of rentals weren’t that bad.
“I remember meeting an amazing woman through a spiritual circle I went to a year or so ago, I wonder if I should contact her and see if she’s got any advices for me.”
That woman not only had advices for her, but the great news that an apartment had just become vacant in her building. She also spoke French, was a single grandma like mum, and highly spiritual too. Incredible!
So mum ended moving there.
She would sit in her new lounge, facing the sea. She would see the boats coming and going, the great tides of the North Sea, the kids having ice creams with their grand parents and the flow of Belgian tourists coming for the holidays.
Mum became a new woman, she was living her dream. She took Vlaamish classes and became fluent, she made friends, had constant visitors coming to stay with her.
She lived there for about 2 years. She was so happy, so free.
As she slowly left her body, when she was in hospital, she would still share how happy she was to have that apartment. “I want to go back and sit in my chair, I want to see the sea again”.
We both cried so hard when we shared about my last holidays with her there. We had shared so much, had had so much fun and many amazing conversations.
She never saw the sea again and I never saw her sit in her big new reclining chair that I had helped her purchase before I departed at the end of my last trip.
So today, I took the kids to the beach and we created a beautiful drawing in the sand, to honour mum, a few days after her birthday.
May the sea wash away our tears, may you be happy roaming the infinite, free as a bird, in an endless see of Love, my beloved mum.
Cendrine
