I spent last week driving the Oregon Coast. I spent weeks and weeks researching and planning the trip and I was giddy with excitement to see in person the majesty of the Pacific Northwest. I can say in all honesty, it did not disappoint. It took me nine hours to travel just over a hundred miles last Sunday because I stopped at every pull-off and every state park to soak up the view, the smell and of course, the sound of the waves on rocks.

I witnessed Thor’s Well, The Devil’s Churn, Spouting Horn, Cape Perpetua and all the small coves and beaches along the way where the combination of massive rock and massive wave created jet-like sounds that reverberated in my soul. For seven days and nights I was in earshot of the ocean. The rhythmic tide was my constant companion on this otherwise solo journey. I alternated between the highest cliffs to my toes in the water, back and forth, all day long every day. I was awake as the clouds rolled in over the water and I fell asleep only after the sun had set beyond the horizon.

I sat and watched the endless flow of water to rock and back again, crying for how alone I felt, crying for how small and insignificant I felt, crying for how endless the world is and how short our time here is, crying at the majesty before me, crying in gratitude at being able to see and feel it all. And then, for the last two days of my trip, I dipped down into California to see the redwood trees in Jedediah State Park.

I grew up with woods behind my house. The college I attended was known for all the trees on campus. I moved from Illinois to Pennsylvania mostly for the beauty of the mountains of trees out there and I now live on a farm in Michigan set in the woods. A lifetime ago, I walked through woods while the man I was with told me the scientific names of the trees and showed me how to tell one variety of pine from another. He spoke of the forest as though he were telling stories of his life – as things he knew not just from books, but from his soul. It is a day I have never forgotten because it’s a day when I first realized how much I loved the trees, too. It was the moment when I realized how my whole life hadn’t just coincidentally near woods, but that, from the moment I had been able as an adult, I had chosen the woods, if only in passive context, as where I wanted to be. It wasn’t long after that that the redwoods became the only entry on my bucket list, the only thing I knew with certainty that I wanted to see before I died.

The redwoods were on James’ bucket list, too. We were so busy living our dream here on the farm that we didn’t even talk about bucket list things until it was too late for him to start crossing them off, but the trees were one of only a few things he had jotted down and so my visit to the redwoods wasn’t entirely a solo one. With a small container of ashes in hand, I set off into the woods in Jedediah Park. I didn’t pick the biggest tree, where everyone would stop and take selfies. I didn’t pick the tallest or the most obvious tourist spot in the park.

I chose a tree just off to the side of the path, where the sunlight was shining down through the leaves, but far from any trails or viewing areas. There were ferns and the biggest clover I have ever seen growing underfoot. The air smelled dusty for lack of rain and the blue of the sky was almost impossible to see for all the trees. I brushed aside a pile of needles and leaves and my words and tears mixed with the ashes that I left at the base of the tree. I placed the needles back over the small pile of dust and stood there a long while wondering how a tree can live so long and a man cannot. My tears came from a depth of sorrow I cannot describe but there, beneath the majesty of that tree, I felt the beginnings of acceptance. I hate with a fire that still threatens to consume me, that he is gone, but I am slowly starting to realize that is the reality I have to move forward with. There, with branches reaching to the heavens, I felt a shift towards that acceptance, a movement in my soul to let go of what should have been and just to hold on to all that was. James and I talked about where he wanted his ashes to be. Originally he had wanted them to be scattered here on the farm, but when we realized staying on the farm might not be a permanent choice for me, we revisited the topic. “I want to be wherever you are,” he said. Among the trees is where I will always be, somehow, someway, and so shall he.