April 12, 2003 07:48 PM

So I'm at my mom's (which is right on the shore of the San Francisco Bay) and it's been kind of rainy. And I look out, and the clouds are starting to clear, and there's a rainbow stretched out over the water.

I can't help but remember my dad's funeral. About three years ago, he died pretty suddenly. Right after New Year's, two five mile runs on consecutive days. No problem. The next weekend, he was in the hospital because he couldn't breathe. Six weeks later, he was dead of lung cancer.

He died pretty easily, all things considered. He basically just went to sleep in the chair at the doctor's office while he was receiving his second round of chemo. And then his heart stopped. He had been losing hair and weight from the chemo, but otherwise he seemed to be doing really well. He had driven himself to the doctor's office that day.

His funeral was on a rainy day a lot like today. Everyone's shoes got muddy at the gravesite. Afterwards, we came back here to the house.

My dad was an attorney, and one of his clients was the owner of a fleet of Alaskan fishing boats. My dad had become very close with this guy, because during their case together the fishing-boat owner had made it through a nearly fatal brush with prostate cancer.

He sent us a wreath for the funeral that was wrapped with blue and gold ribbon and flowers. To be honest, we initially thought it was kind of unattractive. But then we realized it wasn't a wreath . . . it was actually a circular life preserver. Seen in that light, it was perfect. And the note that came with it explained that we should throw it into the Bay in memory of my dad.

As the day wore on, the sorrow and fatigue and alcohol reached a level where someone finally said, "I think it's time to throw this thing in the water."

There's a levee that runs along the Bay, a raised bank that keeps the Bay from flooding the town, which is built on landfill below the water level. Along the top of the levee there's a bike path. And within moments, a mob of about fifty of us was marching down this path, looking for a good spot to throw the wreath from.

I wonder what the passing joggers thought?

The water was low in the Bay . . . which is quite shallow in some parts. Not too far from the house, we actually found a spur of land that had been revealed by the low tide which stretched a good thirty yards out into the water.

No thinking . . . shoes off. Socks off. Cuffs and sleeves rolled up. Barefoot people in funeral best running out into the water. The spur was narrow and still submerged by a few inches. It wasn't firm ground, but a shelf of sharp stones and shells formed by some odd pattern of currents. It scraped and tore our feet. But who noticed, who cared?

The wind wailed and the air still smelled of rain, and we were freezing with torn feet and ruining our clothes, but it was the only experience so far that was reaching through the numbness of the grief. We marched out of time, out of our lives, out of suburbia, and into some great, throbbing pagan festival. We were Romans at Saturnalia . . . Indians at the Ganges . . . ecstatic Jews being baptized in the river Jordan. The depression was giving way to anger and insanity, which in turn gave way to exhiliration.

We reached the end of the spur. One of my brothers had just had knee surgery. He had to be carried out. We waited for him. And then my biggest brother threw the life preserver as far out as he could. It caught a current, and we watched it float slowly away.

We watched it for a long time. We watched it as the tide rose. And then the trance began to fade, and we realized the water had risen a good four or five inches . . . was now up above our ankles. And the spur which would lead us back to dry land was becoming hard to see. We started to pick our way carefully back, the pain in our feet now more immediate, less ignorable. We made it to land, wandered back to the house, exhausted, bodies frozen, feet tortured. We took turns in the bathrooms washing the grime out of our lacerated heels, arches, and toes.

And then we saw the rainbow. Just like I see right now outside the window. A rainbow that was way too perfect to be real. A rainbow which, obviously, was just an optical illusion of sun shining through water droplets. But to that primal part of us that had sent us charging out into the water . . . it meant so much more.

I see the rainbow today and I think . . . "Hi, dad!"

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