Stephanie and Bodhi
The day I met Stephanie I had pulled up against the edge of the beach not sure if I was going to cocoon in my car or roam. It was a sunny fall day with a sting of winter in the air. Looking over to my right I saw an old car with its trunk up, feet sticking out. Along the interior ran a long orange surf board that peeped over the bottom of the window. I sighed as I pulled on my coat, there are some hello’s you can’t ignore. When I walked over Stephanie was sitting on what looked like a home made L shaped sofa built into the back of her car. A couple of sleeping bags were rolled up, a rug covered the floor while little fairy lights ran the length of the roof. It was a home She smiled and introduced me to her dog Bodhi, who by now had pulled himself up from his cushion and was saying his own hello to me. We marveled at the beautiful day, talked about how she had the best seat in the house, pausing to look at the empty blue ocean and sky in front of us. She told me she had started coming here during the pandemic. She had been living with her boyfriend Chris in MA, a retired green beret who later became a police sergeant. One of his favorite things to do was sky diving, having done over 2000 jumps. It therefore made no sense to her or anyone else why in July 2020 his parachute failed to open, killing him instantly. There were ideas that perhaps his high blood pressure had altered his perception but no one will ever know for sure. The grief that over took her was so powerful and painful she was not able to stay in their apartment. Instead she built a make shift bed in the Buick her dad gave her in 2007, kitted it out with electricity and came to live at the beach in Rhode Island.
“Some people love mountains and forests,” she said, “but I love the ocean, it is where I come to heal.”
She would stay here for days at a time, her trunk open, watching the ocean. It was the only place she was able to find comfort in her grief, a place where she could still see and hear people but be alone. On Sundays an AA group meets along the wall close by to where she parks and she would lie there listening, hearing their stories of despair and feel a great empathy towards them.
One day she bumped into an old army friend of Chris’s who was there to surf. They would sit and talk for hours, which brought her great comfort. He also got her surfing,
“A lot of people who surf,” she said, “are healing from something.”
Before Chris’s death Stephanie had been a photographer and had a blog she kept up with frequently. We chatted about a photographers life and our cameras. She has a fine arts degree from Dartmouth and taught there after she graduated. Since Chris’s death though she has not been able to write, initially too angry at him for not going to the doctor to get his high blood pressure looked at, she has still not been able to put “pen to paper.” Instead she makes her money doing marketing for an on line media company from the back of her car. It made me wonder about all those annoying emails that fill up our inboxes. How many of them are sent from wild places by people with stories so much more interesting than what they are trying to flog.
Three years on she is now applying to airlines to be a flight attendant. The pay is terrible but it means she gets to fly all over for free and find places she might want to photograph. After we had talked for some time I went for a walk along the beach. She stayed in my thoughts and when I sat down to look at the water I could not shake her story, daring to imagine her emptiness and pain. It was too much, I pushed it away, shook it off, what a privilege that was. As I returned to the car I saw Stephanie was doing yoga on the beach. She could have been anybody I passed, she looked like a normal person with a regular life, no visible signs of any tragedy. An hour ago if I had ignored the whispers of her story she would have been. I scratched Bodhi behind the ears as he came up to say hi to me, his gray whiskers once again sniffing around. He too was a comfort to her when Chris died, her one constant. But Bodhi is now dying. He has aggressive cancer, the vet said he had 5 months to live. I choked under the weight of what Stephanie must be living with, so much love and loss. Through her smiles and laugher her sadness was palpable. As we chatted and her story unfolded I was witness to her resilience and strength, a respect for a journey she was being forced to take without running away from it. She sat in her pain, allowing the waves of grief to pound her over and over again.
“I am lost.” She said, “but I am ok with that.”
