For the first time in a long time, I’m returning to the beaches of my youth.
It’s a trip to bring my sister and aunt home to our family burial plot.
We whiled away many happy hours at the eastern end of an island in the Atlantic for decades.
It was a place that wasn’t easy to get to and never easy to leave. It was a place where people named their houses and returned year after year, many for generations.
We watched the sun and the moon rise out of the sea and predicted weather like mariners. Red sky at night, sailors delight. Red sky at morning, sailors take warning. We followed tide charts and what direction the wind was coming from to plan our days.
Beach Picnics, Bike rides, Board Games, Beach Combing,Outside Showers, Jigsaws, Library Books and the end of the day “Drink and Talk” Time filled our weeks . We picked blueberries for pies and beach plums for jelly. We mostly lived on the porches.
While I don’t miss what the island has become, I do miss the way we were. Then, we naively thought it would never end.
With family members that survive, I am coming back filled with gratitude for the island that I knew and loved. In addition, I am thankful that my parents and grandparents didn’t live to hear the daily cacophony of power equipment that drowns out the morning call of the bobwhite and the evensong of the surf or to see the heavy vehicular traffic that overwhelms the roads and lanes and even the beaches- as it would truly break their hearts- as it has broken mine. Still, I know that it is better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all.
Even though so much is ruined about the island, being able to be with family made it all like old times.
