He is nine years old.

We are standing at the edge of the world, together, in the dark.

Dark. Darker, inkier than the dark in my backyard or his.

But not an eerie dark. This one familiarly wraps itself around us.

Friendly. Comforting.

The sounds we hear are the murmuring of the water as it laps our toes.

Our toes are immersed in the frigid water of the Pacific Ocean on the Oregon coast in July.

Toes, I say. 

He is in the water, sitting down. Even after a day frolicking in the waves, he cannot resist the feel of the surf lapping at his chest. 

The murmur of the water is answered by his laughing embrace of it.

It has been his friend for the first 9 years of his life. A predictable, welcoming friend every summer.

Once, 5 years ago, he toddled confidently and fearlessly into the waves before his parents noticed and fell over, submerged in the icy depths of a tide pool.  

His mother ran screaming into the surf to pull him out. He emerged, spluttering, but not angry or put off by the enticing surf.

Now he challenges the water with a boogie board, flies kites as far into the surf as he dares, and laughs at the cold and icy fingers of the water touching his body.

In this moment, we are both enclosed in a world of darkness, gentle sounds of peaceful waves, his laughter, and our contemplation of the dome full of stars overhead.

It’s an ocean above us of stars.

Behind us, around a campfire, his cousins, sister, parents, aunt and uncle and Babop (grandpa) ooh and aah while they watch the shooting star display overhead. 

He and I point out a couple of them to one another.

Mostly, however, we are united in a companionable silence that acknowledges the holy awareness of

Just this moment–companions with the gentle lap of the surf, the dark, the edge of the world, and the sky.

Behind us, I can hear his father walking toward us

Not to warn, pull him back, or disturb the sanctity of allowing his son 

Just to be: here in the dark with nature’s lights spread out above us and

Sea smells and feels.

Allow this moment to be.