Swimming with grief: the healing power of salt water
Grief work, snorkelling, broken glass, and dogs
I dipped below the surface and parted the bladderwrack with neoprene gloves, flicked one fin, then the other, and glided through the upper reaches of the kelp forest. A moon jellyfish pulsed in front of me, a shore crab scuttled behind a stem of seaweed. Sea gooseberries glimmered, swimming fairy lights. A juvenile lion’s mane jellyfish trailed stinging tentacles. From the corner of my eye, shivering silver, like sequins in the sun, a shoal of sand eels swam into view, inches from my delighted face.
It was my first time snorkelling since Andy died, in a Scottish loch we used to visit often, a spectacular place in the highlands where we made many underwater films, where we were deeply happy.
For a long time, I thought I would never return. I’d imagine myself walking on the beach, the island, up to the ruined castle, the old ferry slipway, and it felt impossible to be there without Andy. No, I would never go back, I decided. Too painful.
And then I went back.
It’s strange, visiting a place you have been so many times before, now that everything is changed. I tracked old footsteps and re-experienced memories, like films clips or photographs, vivid in my mind, as if previous versions of myself were waiting behind a veil, or tucked inside the landscape.
During the two-day drive north, I had visited yet more versions of myself: the 18 year old who worked a summer season in Pitlochry hotels; mid-20s junior manager, parked up at Old Inns service station to eat a depressing sandwich between meetings; early-30s career woman, driving the M74 between Scotland and England far too often (so many of those exhausting journeys would be a zoom call today).
By the time I arrived at our loch, I had driven through so many versions of myself I felt transparent, like a time traveller. I parked outside the beautiful place where Andy and I had stayed and a sob rose in my throat. I pushed it back down and made myself a deal: once I’d unloaded the van I could cry my heart out. That made me laugh. It’s just what Andy would do. Get the work done first.
According to Freud (1957),
“the psychological function of grief is to withdraw emotional energy (cathexis) and become detached from the loved one (decathexis).”
In this 2001 article, Boerner and Wortman wrote of Freud’s theory:
“The underlying idea…is that people have a limited amount of energy at their disposal. Consequently, only by freeing up bound energy will the person be able to reinvest in new relationships and activities. Freud believed that the mourner has to work through the grief (grief work hypothesis) by carefully reviewing thoughts and memories of the deceased (hypercathexis).”
Many older models of grief (e.g. tasks and stages) are now viewed as too simplistic, but Freud’s idea of ‘grief work’ continues to be influential.
“He maintained that although the process of working through [thoughts and memories of the deceased] causes intense distress, it is necessary in order to achieve detachment from the loved one.”1
When I snorkelled in the loch, the salt water carried me in my grief work. Salt water, ever-healing: in tears, in sweat, an Epsom salt bath, and the bracing waters of a Scottish sea loch.
Being underwater feels like cohesion with the world. A quiet, joyful, whole-body sense of belonging floods me. I’m in my element, in this element where humans do not belong, where we can’t stay alive without breathing equipment, and yet our presence is accepted by shoals of sandeels, scuttling crabs, and pulsing jellyfish.
A few days before I departed, I sat on the banks of the loch with my cocker spaniel Bruce and felt, deep in my bones, how much the trip had changed me. For years, my grief work has been dominated by letting things go: Andy, and the secondary losses that followed his death - people, jobs, a home, parts of my identity - fell away like autumn leaves. Recently, I’ve begun slowly adding things back into my life. Gazing across the loch, I realised how far I’ve come, how much I’ve healed, that it’s time to begin writing a new chapter of my life. Like the spring day you look up and notice the tree is suddenly covered in tiny green buds.
As I was preparing to leave, I accidentally knocked a glass coaster to the floor and smashed it into pieces.
The coaster was decorated with herring, the subject of one of Andy’s most groundbreaking films. He filmed a mass herring spawn in open water and his unique footage is now part of an environmental campaign to protect Scotland’s herring spawning grounds from destructive fishing methods.
I was devastated at my clumsiness and apologised to my host (who kindly told me not to worry about the coaster).
Of all the things I could have broken, I had smashed herring!
In the splinters of broken glass, I saw my fear of “moving on”, of leaving Andy behind as I learn to live again. Freud said decathexis is the ultimate aim, but I do not want to detach from Andy or the love we shared.
A more recent grief theory, Continuing Bonds, by Klass, Silverman and Nickman (1996) suggests that:
“bereaved people should be encouraged to maintain a relationship with the deceased person, but in a new form.”2
This feels better to me: moving forward with Andy, not moving on from him. I want to bring him with me in my heart. I want to remember our love until the day I die, and make space in my future for memories of the time we shared.
A few days later, I stumbled upon a social media post that said broken glass is a lucky omen. Apparently its spiritual meanings include: the breaking of invisible barriers, a new phase of life, new cycles, new beginnings, transformation.
And of course, glass can be recycled and remade again and again into something new. It is made from sand, which belongs with salt water, our element.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/grief-work#:~:text=Freud%20believed%20that%20the%20mourner,of%20the%20deceased%20(hypercathexis)
https://brightontherapypartnership.org.uk/models-of-grief-what-therapists-need-to-know/
Broken glass an omen. Glass breaks with herring imprints. The subject of Andy’s film, herring. Herring seems to be the common thread. Sounds like to me he was with you and trying to send you a message that it was ok to move on. Is it hard ? Yup, sure is. But knowing Andy is with you in spirit and is watching over you can be a comfort. Don’t be afraid to talk to him. He’ll find a way to get back to you. Sounds like maybe he already has.
This is very good, and you have explored so many aspects symbolically. Well done.