The writer wrote, “ineluctable
as the tide,” and the man re-
membered when he and his wife
paddled their kayaks along the
water and under the bridge divid-
ing the ocean from the bay and
found the paddling instantly
easier. They paddled and paddled
with great pleasure and then the
midwesterners remembered the
tide and the current. Spinning
their kayaks around they paddled
and paddled but kept going back-
ward like a Buster Keaton silent
movie in reverse or a Michael
Jackson backward foot shuffle,
out and out into the ocean.
They strained and huffed and
puffed and seeing the bridge
thought they would blow the
bridge down and finally made it
back under that bridge floating
exhausted in the bay. The writer
wrote that grief was “ineluctable
as the tide.” That day they beat
grief and high-fived a great, if
terrifying ride, but they would
never again forget the ineluctable
tide.