My Mother Was a River Who Loved the Ocean

The peace of someone who had learned to let go, trust the tide, and become the water itself.

One of my favorite poets, David Whyte wrote:

“Love in the words of Shakespeare may be an ever-fixed mark, but the person, the self who loves, is not. Nor is the person who works a work, navigates a career. They are both a long, turning wave form moving through experience with a kind of changing, revelatory seasonality, carrying all before them like a tide, surprising everyone with their twists and turns and contradictory flows. We are each a river with a particular abiding character, but we show radically different aspects of our self according to the territory through which we travel.”

That last sentence stays with me: We are each a river with a particular abiding character, but we show radically different aspects of ourselves according to the territory through which we travel.

Whether carving out valleys, pooling and freezing in a meadow, or surging into the sea, for me, no one has ever embodied Whyte’s imagery better than my mother.

Like a river, she was a force of nature.

I once visited Zion National Park after a massive rockslide altered the landscape. It was remarkable to see how the Virgin River adapted, weaving around the rubble, creating new channels through the desert, and uncovering beauty that hadn’t existed before. That image of resilience—finding a way through, no matter the obstacles—reminded me so much of Mom.

She encountered her own rockslides in life. And she had a choice: stay buried under the weight of anger and grief or carve new canyons for herself. She chose to carve. Over the years, through mothering her six children, her journalism, her commitment to telling human stories, and her deep inner work, she found ways to transform her challenges into something beautiful. She recognized that holding onto anger was a weight she didn’t want to carry. She often took a deep breath and asked, “Now what?”

Mom often said her proudest moment was when I wrote her a card that read, “Thank you for the roots and wings.” She said it summed up her philosophy perfectly. She wanted me and my siblings to grow up not conforming to what the world said we should be, but to who we really were. She gave us the grounding we needed to grow while always encouraging us to fly.

And sometimes that flight meant sliding down an ice-covered hill…

The river running behind our family home in North Dakota never really froze—it was too deep—but my dad wanted us to have the opportunity to ice skate. And since we couldn’t skate on the river, he made a big rink at the bottom of a hill in our yard. He did it manually—he didn’t have a Zamboni or anything—he just smoothed it with a shovel, hosed it down, let it freeze, and hosed and smoothed it again. We all loved it.

One day, my mom had an idea. “It’s such a big open space—wouldn’t it be fun if we covered the entire hill in ice? Then we could sled down to the rink and see how far we could fly!”

Then she had an even wilder idea. “Wouldn’t it be fun to try to skate down?”

My dad managed to cover the hill with ice, and we all tried skating down, even my mom. She wasn’t a natural athlete—not by a long shot. But that didn’t stop her from lacing up her skates, tumbling spectacularly, laughing, and trying again. She never let imperfection keep her from joining the joy. Her gift wasn’t in mastery but in her willingness to show up and make the moment matter.

Those cold North Dakota afternoons became warm childhood memories because my mother had a way of transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary. Where others saw ice, an obstacle, or even danger, she found adventure and delight.

Mom taught us to flow with the current.

During a family vacation one summer, we all visited the Mississippi River. On its banks, Mom had another idea. “Let’s float down the river!” We were six children brimming with energy and curiosity; she was our fearless captain. Before we knew it, we were fully clothed in the waters of the Mississippi.

It wasn’t practical. It wasn’t planned. But it was perfect. And magical. We were all screaming and laughing as we drifted with the current. My dad, spotting us from a bridge, looked on in bewilderment. His first thought was: Who would do this? Then he realized it was his family and shouted, “What the hell?”

My mom waved and smiled as we paddled beside her, content to be in the moment.

Her spontaneity wasn’t recklessness; it was trust. She had faith in life’s currents, in the power of surrendering to the flow. That day, she taught us to let go of overthinking, to delight in the wild, unpredictable beauty of the world. With every ripple and splash, she showed us how to navigate life, one river at a time.

Like a river, she found her way to the ocean.

My mother always had a love affair with the ocean. Not the fleeting kind of love, but the soul-deep, eternal kind. As a child, she spent a lot of time there. Her parents, adventurous in their own right, often took her to the beach, and it became her sanctuary, her playground. She adored nothing more than to dive into the waves, to let them carry her.

In her fifties, she found herself at a crossroads. Sometimes her life felt like an unrelenting tide pulling her under. And yet, she chose not to fight the current. She stopped trying to control or fix what was broken. Instead, she surrendered—not in defeat but in grace. She began the slow, beautiful work of softening her heart, letting go of old beliefs, and allowing the waters of life to wash away what no longer served her. Asking for the grace to forgive became her daily practice, although it didn’t always come easily.

By the time she reached her eighties, Mom was luminous—a beacon of vitality, warmth, and connection. People were drawn to her, enchanted. My father often said, “Your mom changed.” I corrected him. “She didn’t change,” I’d say. “She became who she always was.”

Well into her old age, she still wanted to play and be in the ocean. When she wasn’t strong enough to take the waves anymore, my siblings, my husband, and I walked with her into the surf, one of us holding each of her arms.

Mom went out in the water the day she died. We were there with her as her lungs weakened. We knew it was near the end, and I spoke to her softly, “Mom, we’re at the beach. Feel the water…the waves.” Something shifted. She let go of the struggle for air. We could all feel her peace. We relived our favorite memories at the ocean that day. Being with her in those moments was beautiful.

Mom’s last moments were a dance with the sea—a surrender to the waves. When she left us, it wasn’t with resistance but with the peace of someone who had learned to let go, trust the tide, and become the water itself.

We are each a river with a particular abiding character, but we show radically different aspects of ourselves according to the territory through which we travel.