What does the wave Salahudin imagines after his mother’s death represent in the novel, All My Rage?

The wave which Salahudin imagines after his mother’s death is symbolic of grief, and of everything that he ought to be facing up to. The emotion that should hit him at the funeral instead takes the form in his mind of a wave rolling towards him, “too high to avoid entirely, but so slow that for now, I can turn my back on it” (50). As an onslaught of water, the wave is a symbol for the tears that Sal holds back: “My eyes are dry. The wave is waiting, but I won’t face it. Not now. I’m not going to fucking weep” (55).