In all fairness, I didn’t feel like I was missing him. Or her.

It was the middle of summer, and I was in massage school in Virginia Beach. I went to the Cayce/Reilly School of Massotherapy, located at the Association for Research and Enlightenment, both of which have over 75 years of history behind it. It is also just one block from the beach.

It was my class’s regular habit to walk down to the beachfront to eat, and sometimes swim, during our lunch break. On this particular day, perhaps five or six of us had gone. Since I had my swim suit, I went for a dip, and my classmate, Michael, came along. We dove into waves, finally coming to rest on either side of a boogie board we’d found. The sun was hot, and the water was cool.

We had the same tattoo, Michael and I. It was the om, the symbol for the sound of creation—the sound that unites us with every living thing.

Our arms resting on that boogie board, we listened without words to the myriad sounds of the beach. When our friends yelled that it was time for class, we simply nodded, choosing to be not quite on time.

I said, “I think this is where God is,” to which Michael smiled and agreed quietly. And when we finally made our way back to class, fifteen or twenty minutes later, dripping with ocean water and tracking sand, our instructor paused, turned, and said in all seriousness, “Looking at the two of you, I think life must be very good.”