Dive Moments

Grief is the most painful emotion.

Grief is the most painful emotion that any human can ever experience, and I thought I was coping well with grief, but once again I was proven wrong.

While planning a holiday with one of my best friend, we wanted to go for a beach holiday, and it was suggested how about we go on a dive trip since we are both licensed open water divers.

I jumped upon that idea of diving almost immediately because it is something that I felt I should do before I get too old and unfit. I told everyone that I was going to see sharks, bought new filters for my GoPro and even asked my friend who is a dive master if she dived in Cebu before.

The last time I dived was 7 years ago. 7 years ago, was the first and last time that I dived with my sister. She was in remission then when we took our open water license together. We knew back then that my mother would have never said yes to us going to learn how to dive in the open water. We signed up for the license without telling our mother as we felt that it was ‘better to seek forgiveness than seek permission’ (you should imagine how shocked she looked when we told her. I still remember it till now)

She was probably mad or upset with us as we only told her one or two weeks before we went for the practical lessons. Furthermore, there was nothing she could do because we had already made payment.

(Please don’t follow me, seeking forgiveness instead of permission might not always be the best solution haha)

We initially planned for a refresher dive and a few fun dives thereafter. After talking to the personnel at the dive shop, we were convinced to go for a refresher and to take the advanced open water certificate. Everything seems ok! I was still excited to see sharks.

Everything was ok, till I boarded the boat and the boat set off for the ocean. The emotions started clouding my mind and I pushed it away and told myself let’s just focus on not getting motion sickness.

We geared up, wore our BCG, sat at the side of the boat, ready to back roll into the water and then everything came falling apart. I thought about how during our open water dives , she said to me “Puitz, you should do it first because you so small, wait you sink nobody knows, at least if you do first, I stand on the boat I can see where are you at”

I tried my best to push the flashback away because I didn’t want to suddenly burst out in tears in the ocean. I pretended to cough and that I was choking (don’t judge me) just so that I would have some time to calm myself down.

Next, we had to float away from the boat so that we could begin our descent. While floating, the flashback of how whenever either of us was away for a school trip, we would post on each other’s Facebook – “I’m coming home, I’m coming home, Tell the world I’m coming home” There were times when Kimbo would post “I’m rolling home or I’m floating home” on my Facebook.

Again, I push the thought away and told myself, I can do this. I am brave enough. But I guess not.

When it was my turn to descend, I descended halfway and I couldn’t descend anymore, I never had an issue descending. I couldn’t do it. All the flashbacks of us diving together came back all at once, and I couldn’t push it away at all. It felt like I was watching a movie being played on the glass of the mask that I was wearing.

 I tried very hard to push it away, but I couldn’t. I resorted to kicking myself up to the surface to try to get rid of it. It looked like I was having a panic attack with the way I was waving my hands and legs, but I knew deep down that wasn’t the cave.

The instructor came up with me and told me to breathe and relax and we will try again together. Maybe it was a psychological thing, but I couldn’t equalise and at that point of time, my nose hurt.

I tried to descend a total of three times, and I failed to descend thrice. Each time, I tried to descend, memories of us diving kept being ‘played’ on repeat mode; including the memory on how our favourite underwater signal is the middle finger pointing downwards. How our mother used to scold us for pointing the middle finger at each other, and our answer would be “No, the finger pointing down. We are doing the diving signal for stingray”

That was when the tears started forming in my eyes, and I called it quits and didn’t continue with the dive anymore.

I floated back to the boat with tears in my eyes and sighed. I didn’t expect myself to have those sudden flashbacks, Those sudden flashbacks made me realise how much I still miss my sister.
One day, I will find the courage to be brave and to go on dives again. To find the courage and mental strength to smile at those memories we shared and yet continue to go on adventures on her behalf.


Till then, grief will always be the most painful emotion, and let’s try our best to live boldly.
To those that are also grieving, I do hope that this website provides you with comfort and always know that you are not alone in this whole process

Xoxo
Live boldly.