dear stranger

by therese beale

ON THE SECOND of a ten-day writing conference at a beachfront hotel in Seaside, Oregon, I decided to break free. I wasn’t due to attend any conference sessions until later that afternoon, and the oceanfront boardwalk next to the hotel beckoned. The sky was dark and brooding with January storm clouds, and the surf churned violently in a winter gale. But I figured I’d get a little exercise along the historic 100-year-old promenade and let the wind blow the stink off me, as they say. I tucked my writer’s notebook under my arm and set out intending to seek images of Praise, which a speaker at the same conference the previous year had discussed in one of her talks. The speaker emphasized her gratitude practice and how Praise had enhanced her writing. Praise links back to the divine, she said. And Praise was, in fact, my specific intention for this brand-new year, a single-syllable word that would guide me in a positive direction. Now I heard this speaker’s voice echo in my mind: To notice at all is a requisite for Praise.

The wind picked up, and rain began blowing sideways. Even the gulls wobbled in flight and started landing on the beach. I made it only a few blocks down the boardwalk before I gave up and decided to make a U-turn and head back to the hotel. My fingers were numb, and rain was pelting my face. So much for Praise.

When I turned the corner near the hotel entrance, I peered inside the tall swimming pool windows because I had finally remembered to bring my swimsuit on this trip. Maybe I’d have a chance to relax in the hot tub and thaw out later. The pool was empty, but I didn’t see a hot tub. I moved further over to search through the next bank of windows hoping to catch a glimpse, and that’s when I saw the hot tub. That’s when I saw you.

Steam fogged the windows, and at first, I thought you were doing the dead man’s float. Geez, I hadn’t done one of those since grade school. What a weird place to practice! You didn’t move, and bubbles surfaced from beneath your body but not near your head. The water swirled, pushing your body ever so gently against the currents of the jacuzzi. The wind whipped the hood of my jacket into my face, and I pushed it aside for a better look through the foggy window, hoping to see movement in your fingers, feet, arms, or legs. I started counting. One Chimpanzee. Two Chimpanzee. Three Chimpanzee. What a stupid way to measure time. I didn’t know how many seconds had passed. All I knew was that every single second mattered if you were not breathing.

The whole scene struck me as odd. Someone alone in the hot tub in the middle of the day. My mind began to race to process what I was seeing. A plastic Pepsi bottle within arm’s reach on the rim of the hot tub contained a light green beverage, its label looked worn. Good idea not to bring glass to the pool, but the liquid looked suspicious. Clearly not Pepsi. You were wearing a flimsy pale beige swimsuit. Your frizzy brown hair trailed down your back. I noticed your flabby pale arms and legs. I don’t know your age, but your swimsuit and hair made me think you were in your twenties, maybe thirties. I’ve never considered myself an alarmist. I figure it’s my low blood pressure or more likely, my ingrained resistance to overly emotional people. I take pride in being calm and level-headed, but this was a time when I needed to listen to my gut. Something wasn’t right.

I know my observations sound clinical, the sort of mental notes I might have recorded when I was a newspaper reporter years ago, back when I finally decided I could no longer report on death. The man who drowned in the swamp while fishing on Thanksgiving day? No, I would not photograph him. The mother who’d been hanging laundry in her back yard, shot by a troubled young man she once took in? No, I would not interview the family. I turned away from all that. After years of seeking scandal and trauma—the stuff that makes headlines—I tired of spotlighting human frailty. I flipped to writing features, human interest stories, we called them. I explored how humans lived, not suffered. I felt free of the responsibility to report the unpredictable dark side of life. But here I was, years later, at a writing conference in an idyllic beach town, with the specter of death uninvited. Seconds can feel like hours when you’re paralyzed by uncertainty. At last, I shook off the shock and ran inside the hotel lobby to the front desk and told them there was a person face-down in the hot tub. The receptionist raised an arched eyebrow as if she didn’t believe me until I repeated: “She’s not moving.” When I offered to call 911, she dashed into the back office and yelled, “Somebody check the pool!”

I stood in the lobby, numb. Why me? Of all the people walking by the hotel that morning I was the one who happened to look in the window. My eye caught a glimmer from the pool water. I had been seeking something to Praise, a diversion from a depressing gray morning, and I found your body instead. I feel terrible admitting that. But I wonder: Did you choose me to be a witness to your sorrow? If I had walked by minutes earlier, I might have seen you slip into the swirling water. I would have called for help, maybe in time to save you. But here I was, a useless spectator.

A few fellow conference attendees sat on a gray faux leather bench seat nearby, checking their phones. Suddenly I realized the hotel décor was long overdue for a makeover. Mahogany-like polished paneling, hardwood floors the color of sand, beige walls, a nondescript blue mural mimicking waves behind the front desk. It all felt so tired. I wasn’t sure I could rejoin the conference as if nothing happened. The image of your body was fresh in my mind, but I couldn’t just stand in the lobby, waiting for a stretcher to emerge from the pool area. My job was done.

I had to do something to feel normal, to glide back into the crowd. The dining room adjacent to the lobby hummed with the excited conversation of my fellow conference attendees. The lunch buffet was about to close. Another taco bar. I wasn’t hungry and would only pick at the food, anyway, but I half-filled my plate anyway with beans and rice, strips of chicken, a few chips and guac.

When I walked into the dining room, everyone was looking out the windows: the blue lights of a police car flashed in the hotel parking lot. An ambulance arrived soon after, and I started counting again, hoping that within a minute the medics would flash their red lights and rush you to the hospital. I wanted something to Praise. But the ambulance didn’t leave.

The room buzzed with curiosity. I wanted to tell everyone what I knew about this public drowning in our hotel hot tub. I was hoping I’d find some way of untangling my jumbled thoughts by voicing the words in my head. I wanted to say death was lurking down the hall, that I thought I’d witnessed a suicide. I was ashamed of myself jumping to conclusions, but I’d felt an immense sadness seep through that foggy window. I wondered if the mysterious liquid in the Pepsi bottle had been your escape.

The not-knowing was disturbing. Your body slipped beneath the surface, willingly or accidentally—cause and outcome uncertain. The tension reminded me of the fragility of life, that we exist in a liminal space on any given day. Once at my book club, somewhere between the passing of the wine and the slurping of butternut squash soup, someone said, “Did you know that all of our kids know someone who has died from suicide?” The question hit me hard, and I wondered if the rest of us, all mothers of young adults, felt the same reaction. We all murmured in recognition that the death of a child is a parent’s greatest fear.

A day passed at the conference. I Googled stages of drowning in hopes you fit within the survival phase. I was obsessed with the idea that somehow you had survived, but I worried you would wake up alone, in a sterile hospital room, with no one to comfort you. I wondered if the authorities could find your family. I wished I could at least take flowers to the hospital.

But someone pulled me aside to tell me you didn’t make it. You had checked into the hotel a few days earlier, and that your family had been notified and was on the way to make arrangements. The topic of your death isolated me, if only for a few minutes, from the enthusiasm emanating from the conference, the chatter of my conference mates swirling around me, their energy, their free exchange of insight. I knew the ambulance hadn’t left with you in it. Of course, I knew it. But I couldn’t help thinking it wasn’t true.

I was offered counseling. I imagined myself sitting with a police chaplain and knew I’d have nothing to say. Sure, we could pray together to transmute my sorrow, but I wanted to sit by myself with the grief. I needed to process witnessing the passing of life. I wanted to embrace the heartbreak of caring about a stranger.

I sat in conference sessions and looked for something to stimulate my attention. Overhead flat panels of glass were arranged to appear as chandeliers. Ugly. The walls were tan, the curtains gold, the carpet a mottled mosaic of cream and tan. I gazed out the windows at the ocean, but the weather never improved over the next week. It only got worse. Icicles hung over the balcony outside my hotel room, and water streamed inside the tracks of the sliding glass doors. The wind blew with such force that I rarely ventured outside. I attended lectures and workshops and tried to focus, but I wrestled with how to put your death into words.

One of the speakers asked: “How much of yourself do you want to give away? What do you need to go to the dark place and tell the story?”

Your death was the situation I wandered into, but my story would be how I chose to move forward. I thought of my commitment to Praise in the new year. That being in the present moment means taking in life as it is, beauty and sorrow. We owe it to each other to notice what matters. I could have walked on by the pool windows or decided you were none of my business. I’m glad I didn’t.

I figured I’d never know exactly how or why you died. Really, I still don’t. But then someone overheard a police officer talking about you in the local coffee shop. That you had checked out of rehab a few days before. The drowning was an accident, he said. Case closed. How convenient, I thought, and how obnoxious. Your death discussed as casually as a football score. Your life just another statistic efficiently wrapped on the police log as EMS S31. An Emergency Medical Service recorded, no further details.

I refuse to think your life should be so easily dismissed. I believe you lived moments of joy, that you giggled as a child, that you were held by someone who loved you. I imagine you lived in a small town not far away. Maybe you spent weekends with an aunt, the only relative who really understood you. Maybe you went to the AA meeting at your local church but didn’t say much. Maybe you were making your way through recovery and were struggling and full of despair. Maybe no one had ever asked you about your reasons for living. Or your reasons for not ending your life. I will never know. But I will never unsee you. And I will always wonder if what I was thinking about you at that conference, so soon after your passing, was a requisite for Praise.

About the author:

Therese Beale writes creative nonfiction with a nod to her journalistic roots. She is a graduate of Pacific University’s Master of Fine Arts program and has been published in Talking Writing and The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature. When she’s not at her desk, Therese enjoys exploring the endless beauty of the Pacific Northwest and beyond with her husband or hanging with her two adult sons in Seattle.