Chicken Soup for the Beach Lover's Soul (5 page)

That summer, as we left for the beach, Donna appeared sad. She knew that Mr. Crescenti would be well cared for by all the neighbors during the family vacation. Still, Donna called him each night and described how the beach looked and how the sand felt between her toes. Her devotion brought tears to my eyes.

One afternoon we watched as she dragged a large plastic bin from the garage to the beach. She would sift sand each day with an old kitchen colander. She collected what she called “special seashells” and put them in a lined shoe box. We never asked what she was doing; we knew she was on a mission by the look on her face.

The bin returned to the city with us that year. We helped her carry it into Mr. Crescenti's apartment. We lifted the old man's feet into the sand. Donna arranged all the shells on the sand and got out our summer photographs. We all sat on the sofa as she told him all about her summer. “Dig your toes into the sand, Mr. Crescenti,” she said. “It's the same sand that I walked in all summer long.” He smiled and did as she asked, while a tear ran down his face. She showed him each shell, and he listened with great joy. Donna did this for the next six months, every day, seven days a week. She missed her playtime, movies, birthday parties, and many other events. It didn't appear to matter to her. Each day she would pull out the bin, now called “Mr. Crescenti's beach,” and place his feet in the sand. They would talk and laugh for hours together.

Mr. Crescenti passed away, as did his wife, in his sleep. His ashes were sent back to Italy for internment with his beloved wife and daughter.

Donna appeared lost, a part of her life gone. Mom and Dad, along with many of the neighbors, assisted in cleaning out his apartment. Donna retrieved the bin of sand and brought it into my parents' living room. Here it stood for nearly a week. At the dinner table one night she announced that she had a plan, and we all smiled.

That Sunday a memorial service was held in the lobby of my parents' apartment building. Donna delivered a written invitation to each neighbor and requested that all who come bring a jar with them. All fifty families were represented that morning. Donna had pasted all the photos from the old leather-bound photo album on poster board, and they stood in the lobby for all to see. My father and I read a verse from a book of poems about the sea. Cookies from the bakery where the couple purchased their daily bread were delivered to the lobby and enjoyed by all.

My father introduced Donna and lifted her up on a small table. Slowly she read a letter that she had written the night before:

Mr. and Mrs. Crescenti lived in this building for a long
time. They watched my mom grow up. They were very
friendly. Mrs. Crescenti made the best cookies in the
world. Mr. Crescenti was a great shoemaker. I love the
beach, and he did too. I brought his beach here today
because I know it would make him smile. I think he
would like his beach to stay here with all his friends.
Please, can you take some sand home in the jar that you
brought with you and keep it to remember Mr.
Crescenti?

Not a dry eye could be seen in that lobby.

Each neighbor scooped up some sand and took a little part of Mr. Crescenti's beach home with them that day.

I stood in awe, watching the event, feeling my heart swell with pride at the little girl who had made this all possible.

As I write I stare at her picture and a little bottle of sand that for me is a message for all times: Life is like sand on a beach. It can blow away if you aren't careful.

Yet, like love, it can never truly be destroyed.

Anne Carter

Life's a Beach . . . and Then You Drive

The surf's up and it's finally time to hit the beach! For months, I had pored over so many
Coastal Living
magazines that I'd practically given myself sunstroke in anticipation.

I had waded through pages of sun-filled layouts with families happily walking together along the sand. Smiling Coppertone kids beamed over buckets full of perfectly formed seashells and posed in front of Biltmore-sized sand castles that they'd constructed, I imagine, sans parental participation. Moms and dads looked blissfully relaxed in lounge chairs, while their carefree children frolicked in the ocean without a jellyfish or icky floating thing in sight.

Unfortunately, you won't find many photos like that in our family album. Faster than you can say “Vamos a la playa,” it's clear that a day at the beach with my brood isn't exactly, well, “a day at the beach.”

After an hour of overpacking the car with a stack of rusty sand chairs, a leaky cooler, countless sand toys, and as many boogie boards and skim boards as Ron Jon's Surf Shop carries, we look more like the Beverly Hillbillies than the well-heeled beachcombers I'd seen in those glossy periodicals.

The kid's backseat bickering begins before we even make it down the driveway. It continues as we lug our gear across a Sahara-wide strip of sole-searing sand. We wince in pain as we try to sidestep the shrapnel of broken shells along the way. The schlep seems endless as we ritually wander and stop—at least three times—until we're sure that we've found just the right spot.

It's only after we've fully unloaded and arranged our chairs in perfect alignment with the sun that we realize that the tide is actually coming in. My husband does not look amused as we frantically chase scattered flip-flops that have been swept away by a small tsunami, and we move yet again—back to where we stopped in the first place.

After fighting gusts of gale force winds, we take a moment to bask in the glory of getting our rickety umbrella planted upright and thankfully without impaling any neighboring sunbathers. Then comes a heated Greco-Roman wrestling match to get the children covered with their sunscreen, which by their protests you'd think was really acid.

My husband, with a solar-induced migraine, quickly tires of a minefield-like game I call “Which bikini-clad body on the beach most closely resembles mine?” Then we begin the losing battle of trying to keep track of all our pails, shovels, and stolen hotel towels—most of which are already half buried.

It's only a matter of time before the kids begin a chorus of complaints about the sand in their eyes and the grit between their teeth or somewhere else in their swimsuits. I wonder if I hold a seashell to my ear, would I hear the sound of a child whining?

But eventually we settle in and find our rhythm with the ebb and flow of the sea. The boys excitedly start digging their way to China with some newfound “best friends”—sans parental participation—and my daughter discovers the joys of a good beach read. Even my husband and I are able to unwind with a quiet conversation in complete and uninterrupted sentences.

Before we know it, the air starts to cool as the sun calls it a day. We pack up and head home. This time the backseat is quiet as my sleepy beach bums, with their sun-kissed skin and sandy smiles, drift off dreaming about our next trip to the shore.

At last . . . a picture-perfect day at the beach.

Audrey D. Mark

Five Minutes to Fear

W
e can only be said to be alive in those
moments when our hearts are conscious of our
treasures.

Thornton Wilder

Our families camped together once a month, so when the Fourth of July fell on our scheduled weekend, we never gave it a thought not to proceed with our plans. The drive to Rehoboth Beach took six hours, counting four bathroom stops for three children and two women and two men who swore they would lay off the water.

The campsite was five miles from the pristine shoreline and boardwalk. We couldn't wait to dig our toes into the warm sand. Our daughter was seven at the time and our friends' daughters were eight and three. We packed enough toys, beach towels, and tanning lotion to last three weekends.

After pitching our tents and setting up camp, the seven of us piled into our cars and began the hunt for parking spaces closest to the water so that the men would not have to resort to camel-like behavior when hauling our supplies to the beach.

We staked our claim on the remaining ten feet of sand and sent the children to the ocean's edge. Our striped towels and white flesh blended with the thousands of other sun worshipers. Music blared from cranked-up radios while Frisbees whizzed overhead. Fair-haired recruits in muscle shirts hawked their ice cream sandwiches and cold soda while I poured lukewarm Kool-Aid.

From where I reclined, I had a clear view of the three girls splashing near the water. They chased the waves and tunneled into the wet sand, building castle after castle. It took extreme persuasion to convince them to relinquish the sea long enough to split soggy sandwiches with us. Periodically, the men would drop their books and leap into an incoming wave while capturing an unsuspecting child. I could only imagine the giggles above the beach clatter.

After hours of play—and sunburned feet—we motioned for the girls to join us. I packed the towels and lotion while my best friend packed the toys and food. We each had our responsibilities but neglected the most important one. My daughter and her eldest daughter arrived by our side. Their youngest girl didn't.

We locked eyes. Our previously orderly world shrunk to the beach and the thousands of people strewn around us. Instinct jolted us into action. We screamed her name and pushed past bathers and tanners, frantic to find a missing child in a green bathing suit. Each second ticked by as though specifically designed to torment us.

“Angela!” My head snapped as the perfect picture of a mother and daughter reuniting exploded in my vision. I wanted to fall to the ground and weep amid the mass of strangers who had been unsuspecting participants in a drama unfolding before them.

Since that day, I've relived those five minutes of fear at Rehoboth Beach too many times. I relived them each time my daughter hid from me behind a store fixture or ventured out alone in the car after passing her driver's test. I relived them when she was late returning home from dates and when she married and moved to a city far from my reach.

Years later, we relocated to Florida, where once a month we frequent the swarming beaches of Daytona. My husband and I rent beach chairs and an umbrella and stake our claim along with the other beach lovers hoping for a relaxing time in the sun. Invariably, I spy a child dropping his bucket to search for his own cluster of recognizable faces. My heart freezes until I witness the mother wrapping her arms around him again. Only then do I breathe and rejoin the masses.

Terri Tiffany

“I'm keeping an eye on my mom.
I don't want her to lose me.”

Reprinted by permission of Stephanie Piro.
©
2004 Stephanie Piro.

Cycle of (Beach) Life

F
orget not that the earth delights to feel your
bare feet and the winds long to play with your
hair.

Kahlil Gibran

Every summer it was the same. Sundays, Mom was on the deck early, feeling the air and looking toward the mile-distant Southern California beach. “The fog's burning off!” she'd conclude—if we were lucky. Then she'd say the magic words.

“I think it's turning into a beach day.”

My little brother Billy would shout “Yea!” and then he'd dance around in the hall. I'd head to my room, smiling, to put on my bathing suit. We both knew that those magic words meant no chores, no phones ringing, no jobs—in fact, no responsibilities at all. The only certainty behind the words was that we'd have fun. For this afternoon only, we would be the exclusive focus of Mom's and Dad's attention.

During beach days, family ruled.

Mom and Dad were a young couple, dark-haired and athletic, when they got their priorities in order. Just for the day, they learned to turn their backs on windows that needed cleaning and a lawn that needed mowing. They'd conveniently forget that the car hadn't been washed in a month. If the weather beckoned, it was more important to them to assemble, drive, and trundle everything down to the coast like pack mules, arms overflowing with sun lotion and surf-mats and water bottles. Sometimes they'd have to make two trips. Then they'd set up umbrellas and beach chairs and towels.

As kids, neither Billy nor I lent a serious helping hand. During the packing process, we were too excited. And once we were down there, we'd be too busy gaping at the ocean, and all that sand, piled like the sweetest sugar at our feet.