Wednesday … at the Water’s Edge
David R. Weiss – November 4, 2026

My confusion and disorientation are growing. Almost nothing makes sense to me anymore. Still, I’m here. At the water’s edge.

My confusion and disorientation are vicarious, you might say. I’m with Marguerite, as usual, for lunch. But “as usual” is in steady flux, as Marguerite ebbs ever closer to Someplace Else. Her words are both fewer and fainter. Her sentences are seldom finished. And her gaze only rarely meets mine. She prefers to look out her window, even while she talks to me. (I think she’s talking to me.)

Her half-sentences are peopled with her mom, dad, and Rebecca (her daughter)—although they appear disconnected from any chronology, the story of her life a vivid-to-her, vague-to-me jumble. The sentences fade away before I find any footing. And I’ve only overlapped with the last eight years of Marguerite’s eight-nine. So, I am mostly a stranger in a strange land as she recounts or re-imagines memories in my presence. Which is why almost nothing she says makes sense to me anymore. Still, I’m here. With her. At the water’s edge.

As Marguerite gazes out the window, she seems certain that she (and, hence, WE) are sitting at the water’s edge. Now, the roof outside her window is covered with smooth rocks wet from the rain and the sky is grey and misty. I don’t know what has persuaded her that we’re at the water’s edge but far be it from me to try and correct her perception. With a mix of “hmmm”s and “I see”s, I do my best to be with her.

At some point, I try to do even better.

I remind Marguerite how years earlier (she was already in her eighties, but still clear-minded) she would describe those she loved who had died as having “gone to light.” Then I add: Marguerite, at your age, you’re getting close to “the light” yourself. I wonder if that nearness means that those already in the light become easier for you to notice. As though, for you, the veil is thinning.

“Yeah, I think so!” she replies so emphatically, with such strength in her voice, it almost startles me.

I go on: It’s as though the persons you meet can be on this side of the veil or on the far side of the veil. You’re right in between, and all of us can be present to you.

She nods with energy I haven’t seen in several visits. Her mind may still be jumbled, but it is wide awake right now. She protests, “It doesn’t make any sense.” But the words don’t deny the experience, they simply admit she doesn’t have the right categories for it.

I continue. Is this wise? I don’t know. But my mind is wide awake now, too. And I’m hoping to offer her a small bearing in the swirl that is her life.

I say, Marguerite, I think maybe time is becoming optional for you. Think about this. From the time we start school, we learn that everything fits into past, present, or future. That becomes the way we sort out all of our lives. But as really little kids—from birth to four—we live sort of outside time. Past, present, future haven’t laid claim to us yet. But from when we start school all the way to becoming senior citizens, the order of time orders our lives.

But, Marguerite, what if, when we get really old, when we near the light, what if then, we remember that time isn’t so certain. It’s just a convenience of this world. And you’re now beginning to move through life outside of time. Again.

“That’s true,” she responds, still pondering it all. She can no longer find half the words she knows, but she appears to understand perfectly well everything I say.

I’m making my own connections, in real time. I suggest: And I can only imagine that life outside of time can be either very disorienting or filled with wonder. If we hold tightly to the categories we’ve used almost all our lives, then to suddenly find that past, present, and future no longer stay in their places would make anyone feel dizzy. But if we allow the possibility that life is most Real outside of time, then we can remember what we knew as kids: life isn’t lived in order, it’s lived in wonder, in love.

I have to smile, because here Marguerite speaks the only two complete sentences she has all day: “Yeah, I’ve thought that many times. And in our situation that certainly rings true.”

Our worlds are drifting apart, but whether she follows my meaning with her mind or her heart, something like a bearing has been offered and received.

Finally, because I know Marguerite has an inestimable fondness for Jesus, I remind her that he also spent time at the water’s edge. “Oh, I love being by the water.” I remind her that Jesus called several of his disciples at the water’s edge. That, at least once, he preached from a boat just off the shore. And that one of his Easter appearances happened there.

I retell that Easter story (from John 21): After Jesus’ death the disciples were perhaps so sorrowful, so lost, that some of them went back to fishing. And on this morning, they have fished all night but caught nothing. Their luck matches their sorrow. In the early dawn, Jesus comes upon them, walking along the water’s edge, but they don’t recognize him. He asks if they’ve caught anything, and they answer, No, nothing. He tells them to put their nets in right beside the boat.

And I tell Marguerite that I’m sure the disciples roll their eyes at this, Who is this stranger to tell him how to do their job? But they do, and suddenly their net is so full of fish they can’t lift it out of the water. And in that moment, Peter realizes it’s Jesus. And he jumps out of the boats and goes splashing through the water to meet him on the shore.

As I’m telling her this, Marguerite is smiling, somewhere at the water’s edge. And although I see the whole story clearly in my mind as I tell it to her, in that moment it isn’t Peter that I see jump into the water and splash his way toward Jesus. It’s Marguerite.

Holy shit.

In a few more minutes, we say our goodbyes and our “I love you’s.” As I walk down the hallway to the elevator at her assisted living facility, which is all too ironically named Villages Shores, my eyes are moist with wonder at what just transpired … at the water’s edge.

***

David Weiss is a theologian, writer, poet and hymnist, “writing into the whirlwind” of contemporary challenges, joys, and sorrows around climate crisis, sexuality, justice, peace, and family. Reach him at drw59mn@gmail.com. Read more at www.davidrweiss.com where he blogs under the theme, “Full Frontal Faith: Erring on the Edge of Honest.” Support him in Writing into the Whirlwind at www.patreon.com/fullfrontalfaith.