Returning Home with the Seas's Secret Pain

The sun slowly crept over the horizon and cast its warm embrace over the African plains, setting behind a burst of oranges and reds. Lost in a wealth of thought, Sam stared, his sad eyes set deep into his sunken face. With a heavy heart and a mind riddled with memories, he made his way back home.

Sam had been lost at sea for 10 years, and although his family presumed he was dead, here he was—physically alive yet mentally still at sea. The only hint of this past life was the faint curling of the ocean that clung stubbornly to the hard lines of Sam’s face.

Returning to his family, their shock and surprise became tangible— tangible and uncomfortable. A clearly visible layer of disappointment, buried pain, and melancholy hung in the air as his family searched for something to say that would not damage any of the old wounds that had been surface again.

Suddenly, Sam opened his mouth and shared a few stories of his time at sea. All of the conversations were composed of calmness and gratitude, and filled with an awakening of understanding and the acceptance that the uncertainties of life and death can never really be fully known. His family was wary at first, for the secrets that the enigmatic sea held to Sam, but as the days went by, his aching stories and visions of the majesty from the depths of the ocean invited a deep flood of empathy, curiosity and enthusiasm from his loved ones.

The conversations increased, but as the nights got longer, the depth of the topics began to take shape. Piece by piece, every member chose to give their part in the stories, painting a powerful picture that was compassionately connecting them to each other. By finding solace in each other, their insecurities and frustrations began to drift away like the salty breeze of foreign lands.

The family had come together in a way they hadn’t in a very long time, and it was as if they were all healing in one way or another. Sam had seen a great deal in his travels, and with its burden of cataclysms and heroics he opened his heart to his family, gifting them with a knowledge of life’s most elemental questions. Even on an inhospitable terrain, in the barren silence of the darkened plains, his family had been miraculously brought closer to each other - their love for one another fortified and permanently resilient.

After days of listening and learning from each other, the family made peace with the idea that life was a fragile state of being but was filled with inexplicably mysterious beauty. And although things could never be exactly the same, in the calmness of the moment they welcomed their newfound awareness and its impenetrable power of unity.

The sky hued an intense hue of purples and blues and with it Sam knew in his heart that it was time to go, for just like a sailor his was pulled by the sea and its whisper of secrets and captivating mysteries. He smiled at his family, catching a glance of their sincere joy and love as he slowly made his way towards the distant shores.