Blissful Mornings - A Boat Who Outlived the Storm
Jose did not grow up on the island. He came from Spain, from a lineage of wealth and refinement,
but none of that ever called to him the way the forest did. He followed his friend Jaime to the island
nearest the lushest woods—where sap dripped thick and golden, and the trees knew the storms
like old companions.
Jose was deaf from birth. But his world was far from silent—his family was his pair of ears, their
voices echoing instructions passed down from generations. Together they shaped heirloom boats,
each one crafted not just to sail, but to carry the weight of dreams and storms alike.
Each morning, Jose wandered the forest in search of the right tree—one mature yet pliable, sturdy
yet forgiving. His uncle Geralt, with a cane carved from sacred wood, taught him how to listen with
his spirit. ‘When birds perch on a tree,’ Geralt once told him, ‘it is the Divine giving permission to
harvest. It is how the forest says yes.’
And so Jose watched. Waited. Felt. Until the moment was right.
After harvesting, he and his family would gather the sap—rich gold from the heart of the tree—to
seal each craft. With time, they built seventy heirloom boats, each one a floating prayer.
Jose never heard the birds or the waves, but his family’s smiles were the music of his life.
Then came the seventieth boat.
They presented it to Mar’s father—a gift of legacy wrapped in wood and sap. And as the family held
seashells to their ears in ceremony, Jose held one too… and heard something.
A faint sound. A tremble. A whisper of arrival.
It was a moment of divine welcome—the gift of sound entering a life once shaped by silence.
From that day forward, Jose built heirloom boats with a new rhythm in his chest. He sang to the
trees before harvest. He sang with his uncle Geralt, now older and walking softly with his cane. And
when Geralt passed, Jose sang a song for him—a song about a boat who outlived the storm, built not
just to endure, but to remember.
-Bliss Chains Authors
