Theda E. Cline Peterson. The name of my mother’s mother.
A pioneer.
A Port Orchard, WA matriarch and life-long resident who in 1925 moved into her first apartment with my grandfather Ralph Peterson, which turned out to be a basement in what is now called the Log Cabin where it functions today as a museum in Port Orchard.
I have many memories of her but those that stand out the most are of the Puget Sound.
With death comes the emotions of those left to mourn. Grandmother died on June 27th, 2003 in Port Orchard. We spent her final moments on Earth together in her room at a retirement home.
It was a beautiful day, the sun was out and streaking onto the institutional walls. It was very calm as her breath filled the room quietly but with clout.
I was reading a book by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche entitled Turning the Mind Into an Ally . The chapter was on death. I will never forget reading the following paragraph: “All around us life and death are performing a dance that brings texture to our existence. Death is our friend because it gives us life. Death defines life. If we didn’t have death, we might not appreciate life. In every moment of our life, death is waiting for us. We’re going to die. We don’t know when we’re going to die; we don’t know how wer’re going to die. Everyone we know is going to die–our parents, our friends, our children, our pets, people we like, people we don’t like, kings and queens, heads of state, movie stars, rock stars, rich people, poor people. All have the same fate. This body will be a corpse” (p. 154-5).
I found a lot of peace with that chapter. My first knee-jerk reaction was to skip that part and go on to something more feel good and joyful considering the circumstances. Yet my curiosity pulled me in.
We fear death so strongly in this country.
Perhaps it is the notion that one day we will wake up and on the front cover of the New York Times will be the headline we have all been waiting for: American Progress Discovers Eternal Life!
It becomes something too easy to ignore in this hedonistic society. As I watched my grandmother’s last few breaths on this planet pass through her physical presence, I felt the space between us dissolve. She had lived her life fully and I was able and blessed to be part of it. She wanted no regrets. Not the regret of stealing money out of her purse as a kid, or of not visiting her more in my adult years. Not only was she letting go, she was teaching me to let go also. Through this cosmic dance I discovered a peace that blanketed me, yet was foreign in texture. This new blanket was awkward as I sat there with no tears, no anxiety, no fear, but instead calm and alive.
Minutes after my mother arrived at the room, my grandmother left her body. I felt it in my chest and then next with the stillness in the room. Grandma was gone. I needed no machine or pulse, I felt grandma leave.
My mom and dad contacted the nurse on duty, who came into check. They went through the motions and pronounced her dead. I lit some incense and sat peacefully in the room. I crossed some sort of a line that day. I no longer feared death the way I had before. I knew it was okay.
So Theda became the name of my Kayak. A way to pay tribute to her as I paddle through the waters of the Salish Sea. Her presence and stories not dead but rather now very much a part of me.
A way to constantly bring forth her name and honor her each time I shove off into cold dark green waters that dominated her life. Waters she witnessed with much different eyes. What the Puget Sound must of looked like to a fifth grader in 1916.
Each time I am out there paddling along, I give pause, say her name silently, and stare out onto the surface of the water to see if she is there smiling back at me.
