At the ocean in Waldport, Oregon, in July of 2018, I met a woman in the vacation rental next door who invited me in for a glass of wine and to watch the sunset. I accepted. She said she vacationed here often, but had been gone for a while, due to health issues.

Me too, I said.

She said she had a stroke last February. She was about my age; I was turning fifty-eight.

Breast cancer last summer, I said.

She told me her son died a few months before her stroke. Just after his wedding, she said. Too young, she said. He crashed his motorcycle.

“I think that’s why I had my stroke.”

We sat in silence, sipping wine. The sky was turning orange and gold over the varied blue of the ocean.

She told me she wasn’t supposed to have wine anymore because of her brain injury.

Then she said, “My son came to me while I was in my drug-induced coma. He pulled up on his motorcycle and he offered me my favorite drink, made with vodka. I could hear the ice cubes. And he said, ‘Come on, Mom.’ I said, ‘No, I have to stay here for a while.’ He shrugged and drove away.”

We watched the sun go down. The sky remained the deepest velvet blue, that blue that comes just before the black.

She said, “I still wonder if I made the right decision.”

Five years later, I still feel her sitting beside me. And every time I hear a motorcycle fly down Coastal Highway 101, I hear her son.

“Come on, Mom.” Ice cubes.

Sunsets will never be the same. I always watch for that blue, that comes just before the black.

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