Three miles beyond the northernmost point of the wild and mystical hike hauntingly and appropriately called “The Shipwreck Coast,” on a small bluff overlooking the surreal landscape of jagged rocks and boulder strewn shoreline, there is a monument, the engraving of which reads in part, “From Osett endings have become beginnings.”
The Makah Indian Nation created this reminder for those who come here to recall those who’ve come before, the five original villages of their people who found Cape Alava home.
I stood there just two nights ago and looked out at what was home to generations of Native Americans. Major stacks and spires of rock resisted pounding surf while enormous trees from the cliffs above lay strewn about like matchsticks uprooted by wild winter gales.
This, and more, was home.
Where endings have become beginnings.
Given I’d lost my wife recently to cancer following a half-century of marriage, being here alone in such a dreamlike, fantastical setting, I had a poignant opportunity to reflect on home, the passing of time, endings, and beginnings.
Like the two bumblebees seeking sweet nectar together on the same flower near my tent, my wife was sweet to be with.
Like the two heart-shaped seaweed floats, side by side, she was always there.
Like the two heart-shaped rocks among so many but these two perfectly matched, so were we.
And as I wandered on down the shore, through the hole in the heart of a piece of driftwood, I peered at one of the mysterious fog-enshrouded, forbidden, and sacred islands.
And though there is a hole in my own heart, as I peer through the pain of emptiness, I find her, sweet-to-be-with reminders of her, everywhere.
