Waves of Healing: A Surf Photographer’s Journey Through Loss and New Beginnings

---

---

I drive back to the shore with tears cascading down my cheeks, receiving text after text from friends, family, and surfers expressing their affection and inquiring about the approaching swell, curious if I’ll be able to participate. I had observed this forecast on the horizon for some time, yet now I confront a moral quandary: should I really be here?

I arrive ahead of my usual time to receive embraces, hugs, and supportive words from my closest friends and associates within the surfing community. Gradually, I slip into my wetsuit and arrange my camera inside its water housing. Typically, when the waves are crashing like this, I can’t help but feel anxious, thrilled, and jittery about what’s on the horizon. However today, at this moment, I feel utterly blank, numb before I even step into the bone-chilling water.

At the irregular shoreline, traversing the slick rocks with the high tide and solid swell colliding into me, I struggle to time my way into the lineup. Instead, I merely stand there and speak, repeating out loud to no one around, “Let me in, let me in. I need to heal; please let me in.”

Less than 24 hours ago, I awoke to a 3 a.m. phone call from my aunt. “Marcus, your mom has passed… Peacefully in her sleep.” It felt more like information and less like destructively emotional news — we had been preparing for this moment for a few days.

The first words I uttered were, “She’s so intelligent… She never would have left if my sister or I were present with her.” Rushing to the palliative care unit at Nanaimo General Hospital, I found my family — in tears — waiting for my arrival as the last one to arrive to say farewell. I walked quietly and deliberately down the hall, focusing on my footsteps and holding my breath. The room was illuminated with battery-operated candles, and my mom lay there in the gentle light, mouth slightly ajar, appearing serene, as if slumbering. Recognizing this would be my final moment with her, I tenderly touched her forehead, startled by how cold she felt. My girlfriend inquired if I desired a moment alone. I quickly replied, “There’s nothing left to express, it’s not her anymore.”

Shortly after entering the lineup, I’m captivated by the unoccupied waves crashing upon the shallow reef at the upper point, with rooster tails of water shooting skyward from the howling offshore wind. I sit in a trance, forgetting that I even possess my camera. I begin to shoot just in time to see Pete Devries catch the largest wave of the morning, speeding down the face, only for the bottom to suddenly give out beneath him. He dives through the barrel to evade injury but surfaces with all the fins blown out of his board and blood seeping from tears in his wetsuit. He offers me a half-hearted thumbs-up and paddles in. I notice the astonished expressions in the lineup — if a surfer of Pete’s caliber, one of the finest, can experience such a near-miss, what does that signify for the rest of us?

Later, we’d discover that once Pete reached the shore and the adrenaline subsided, he collapsed and had a minor seizure. In that moment, I was reminded of how delicate even the strongest can be when something crucial gives way. It’s a peculiar thing to observe — that instant when someone is no longer invincible. Pete was alright, but his day concluded before it even truly started, and I can’t help but ponder how many moments we miss, ending before they have the chance to begin.

My mom had been battling breast cancer for the past eight months — an arduous journey, to say the least. In and out of hospitals, consulting various doctors and specialists, undergoing chemotherapy, witnessing her body deteriorate and age two decades in such a short span. The torment of watching a beloved one suffer is unfathomable until it occurs. It happened relatively swiftly, but I also sensed that the end was nearing, despite an initial diagnosis suggesting she had a few years ahead of her.

I penned a letter to my mom, expressing everything I ever wished to convey, thanking her for being the best mother she could possibly be to me. I felt fortunate to be able to ask her all the questions that piqued my curiosity, even the trivial things which seem insignificant, like her favorite childhood memory and what excited her about the world when she was my age. Ultimately, I read that letter to her as she lay bedridden. I’ve always found it challenging to articulate my thoughts and feelings accurately in the moment, but documenting everything provided me the space to share my true emotions, expressing gratitude and saying farewell, precisely when verbal communication would fail me.

A few weeks before her demise, I got a tattoo that honored one of my mom’s well-known catchphrases: “Good morning, canary.” She would say this to me every morning during my childhood, so I had begun saying it back to her each morning in the hospital.

Back in the water with Pete observing from the sidelines, two of my close friends, Blair Forsyth and Michael Darling, ride wave after wave on the incoming sets. I am astounded by how well they are surfing without the unspoken obligation of yielding priority to one of the most iconic individuals in the lineup. Amid all the excitement, I forget that my mom passed away yesterday. Then Michael paddles back to the lineup and briefly chats with me about the previous wave before asking how I’m coping. I reply with tears. Michael — gentle-spoken, slightly awkward, and often at a loss for words — dismounts his board to embrace me in the water. Then he says something I’ll never forget, “You’re exactly where you need to be.”

The strength of the ocean: it can terrify and comfort. Photo: Marcus Paladino

My mom was always immensely proud of the photographer I evolved into, but even more so of the individual I have become. I attribute all the qualities she cherished — honesty, diligence, kindness, positivity — to her influence. She never imposed an agenda on me in life; her sole wish was for my happiness, and I am genuinely thankful that she witnessed the joy I find in the life I’ve built for myself. She often expressed concern about my decision to swim out and shoot in challenging waves, but she never voiced her concerns out of respect for the effort and commitment she observed me investing in my craft. Nevertheless, I began wearing a helmet this past year, just in case.

I surf for approximately six hours that day, shivering deeply, as I know that if I exit the water, reality will take hold. I will have to begin considering how to organize her funeral, what to do with her condo, how I would inform others of the news, and how to cope with an experience I never anticipated would arrive so swiftly in my life. It’s remarkable how the ocean possesses such potent energy and can evoke a myriad of emotions, almost creating an out-of-body sensation.

The hours I spend in the water — merely a day after my mom’s passing — feel almost as if I’m being elevated somewhere, a realm of understanding that with enough time, everything will be fine. Later, I talk with my family, urging them to engage in activities they relish, in her honor, to discover a source of joy that can temporarily mitigate this loss.

And I continue to believe this today. If you are suffering or feeling lost, go engage in what you adore. Find your equivalent of swimming in the ocean and photographing your friends; whatever it may be, pursue it. Maybe it’s what you need at this moment, and undoubtedly, it’s what Laura Eaton would have wanted for you.

Moreover, it will occupy those vacant moments within your heart. It will generate instances of happiness, perhaps not many, yet they will exist, and they will accumulate until there is more joy than sorrow. Like the tide, time washes over the wounds of grief, softening the sharpest edges until they become bearable.