I am standing again by my gravestone and know that I am not alone.  I can sense rather than see my companion, just as I sense his identity.   Without questioning the circumstances I find myself in I gaze at the stone, trying to read its inscription.

There is a haze over the words, though, and my attention turns from them to the fresh flowers below.  The fragrant pink roses are interspersed with lavender – both once such favourites of mine!  Am I still alive?  I think I must be, despite evidence to the contrary, since the alternative is beyond belief.

Gazing around me I see a solitary seagull on the Celtic cross atop a tiny, tiered church.  We look at each other and it seems to me that I could very easily be up there with him, surveying the scene from his vantage point.  By virtue of my will I could be anywhere I want to be.  That’s how it is, if we are not encumbered with a body.

Disturbed by this sudden knowledge I look down and am relieved to see my legs and feet.  So things are just as they were.  It must have been illusory that I could will my spirit elsewhere.  In any event I am happy here, knowing that he is near.  Soon, soon, he will appear and we’ll be as we have always been.

I can hear the sea calling.  It called before and I should not have answered its call but now my feet are eagerly taking me to a gap in the old stone wall.  Close to the gap stands the impassive grey saint who protects this place.  He towers over me as I feel the first breath of the sea.  There are narrow steps to the cove below, but I have no need of these for now I am standing on the pale sand as great waves assault the shore, their widespread white spume in stark contrast to the farther off blue.  Both sea and sky are the bluest I can ever remember.  Colours, today, are so intensified that I need almost to shield my eyes.  And I am one with all that I can see, as well as with all that I cannot see.  I am a child of the universe, as integral to it as it is to me.

We – he and I – are children, too, of this environment.  The sea runs in our blood and we are never happier than when together, walking the coast paths, surfing, or sailing his lugger.  Not that we ever sailed here