Words not said a regret

I’m standing atop a giant sand dune, near the southern tip of Africa. It’s a sight of overwhelming majesty. Vast, towering dunes, patterned with the ocean breeze, peel away to the west.

The splashes from turquoise rock-pools, and the breaths of southern right whales, peal in from the east.

Sealed with a soundtrack: the highpitched cry of the African black oyster-catcher.

It’s a picture of timeless beauty and resilience – unchanged for thousands of years.

At the peak of the highest dune, I listened for another sound.

A voice.

For amid those sands of time, are grains of a life I once knew. All that remains of my stepfather.

Since we scattered his ashes here, 16 years ago, we, his family, have so much to catch up on.

So many new little faces, we’d love to introduce him to.

So much to tell him.

And not only new words.

For when he died – so suddenly – so much was left unsaid.

In the famous, anguished words of

Mike & the Mechanics: “I wasn’t there that morning, when my father passed away; I didn’t get to tell him, all the things I had to say.”

In moments like this, standing on distant sand dunes, one’s not entirely sure what’s real, or imaginary.

As that same song goes:

“I think I caught his spirit, later that same year;

I’m sure I heard his echo, in my baby’s new-born tears;

I just wish I could have told him, in the living years …”

Standing on that dune, I heard the whisper of the wind, and the cry of the African black oystercatcher.

I knew those sounds were true.

Beyond those – the words I spoke to my step-father were possibly only in my head, or only heard by the deep blue sky.

Perhaps his soul, like his ashes in the sand, are at one with nature at this tip of our wild and precious homeland.

But when my son and daughter came bounding up, exhilarated after a two-hour canter along the coastline, I made sure to tell them an extra (extra) time, just so they knew for certain: “Nic, Maya, I adore you. “I. TRULY. Adore you.”

Never again will words be left unsaid. As the song goes: “Say it loud. Say it clear!”

Rest in peace, Andrew George Comrie – if you can hear my greeting on the wind …

Bless all of our sacred places, where our ancestors still live on.