I remember the first time I heard my mother cry; her knees buckled before she dropped, her fists shook, raised sideways. Her voice crackled like an earthquake. Hairlines morphed into fault lines, the wrinkles above her pours, opened like wounds sewn far too tightly now unraveling at their seams. There were reports of a beluga whale that was beached to death on the shores of Rockaway Beach; Riis Park to be exact. It was also a little over seven miles away from where my mother grew up, just a year after my grandmother, her mother passed away. I watched the levies in her frame collapse like hurricane aftermath. I saw the infrastructure my mother built across the village of her face wash away before me. Later in the night, we watched the scene unfold on CBS News NY, footage showing a massive blanket of bleach-white tarpaulin pulled across the whale’s carcass, my mother ran up the stairs, her palms cupped between her waterfalling eyes. She told me how she saw the same image replaying from Grandma Mildred’s deathbed. I don’t know about anyone else, but as young as I was, I was still a boy in a generation where yo mama jokes were popular as ever, so even I knew it was a little insulting for someone to compare their own mother to a whale.

I followed her up the stairs, softly knocked on her bedroom door, asking the obvious, “Mommy are you okay? Also why’d you call grandma a whale?” 

“Come here,” she called over to me, sitting me on her lap. “Whales are beautiful bubala,” she continued. “Don’t let anyone ever tell ya otherwise, but that’s beside the point, Riis park was our place, we could see the belugas for miles across the setting sun.” 

I remember how many times my mother would remind me of her upbringing in Far Rockaway. How the neighborhood would show its teeth, remind residents and closed-window travelers of its rough edges. But the other side of Rockaway, the both of them would find their little slice of haven in those moments. Summers, and late springs, spent watching the view of the Atlantic’s horizon, the reflection of it all, twinkling across the tide like the mosaic of a million shattered rubies. In the distance, those small glints of the beluga whale, rising out of the water, were like a friendly hello in a time when those gestures devolved into a rare occasion. 

This is the part where one might assume, I tugged my mom, by her sweat-pant leg, telling her how much I would like to go, how she didn’t have to make those trips alone, or that if she needed new company for those trips, I wouldn’t mind tagging along with her. It wasn’t until I turned 43 and my mother was nearing the end of her life, that I offered to continue this cycle. I brought my daughter Juniper along, made sure she was nestled tightly, but comfortably inside the joey pouch I probably spent too much money on. I broke my mom out of hospice, wheeled her across the small, stretch of sand-dusted boardwalk plank, and as we got to that pier, watching the horizon one more time together, a whole pack of belugas swam closer to the pier, but one a little older-looking, bursts out, rising out of the water. My mother, in her last breadth of speech, stared in awe of the beluga trying to reenact a scene from Free Willy. She opened her mouth in the widest grin her dimples could muster.

“Love you too ma, I’ll be seeing you soon,” she says, a swell of relief shining in her tone.

Now, as I sit in this wheelchair. I can feel this life at its tipping point. Death is snapping my joints, contorting my tendons into submission. I stare up at Juniper, now 32, her daughter, Kasey old enough to reach her grandpa’s armrest. I stare across the ocean and see a beluga and her calf.

And I open up a familiar smile, as if I’ve seen this whale & her child in a hundred other dreams, and say, “Love you ma, love you too grandma, I’ll be seeing you both soon.”

Back at the hospice facility, I’m now a resident of; the world fades. The Styrofoam-tile sky of fluorescent lights flicker. I can see Juniper weeping as she squeezes my palms, holding onto them one last time. The world dims to pitch black before I can catch another teardrop with my cheekbone. I awake. I’m the size of four labrador retrievers now, thrusted into the rushing traffic of the vast Atlantic current. My body a vessel reborn underneath the ocean depths. Swimming beside me are two belugas, one a little older, a little paler, another a lot more vibrant, a lot more energy to offer. In the reflection between the daylight slitting through the water and the glossy shimmer across the whale’s blubber, I can see that I’m now a Beluga calf.  All of us rise out of the water together. 

I can see Juniper, across the pier, my granddaughter Kasey holding her wheelchair handles. I sing across the waves, like a distant prayer. In my song, I tell both of my girls how much I love them. I tell Juniper, I’ll see you soon. Although our languages may differ, our physiology as far apart as can be, her own hearing and comprehension vanishing; I have a feeling she can still hear me just fine.