A perfect day

 

It had been a lovely day.

 Surrounded by friends and family

she celebrated her 8oth birthday

 Wearing her favorite pearls and despite the onset of Alzheimer’s

She moved freely around the deck

with her one glass of Champagne with a perpetual smile,

 keeping one eye on friends and another on the sea,

which beckoned her,

It always had. .

 

The disease was eating into her and she knew it;

No longer agile she walked with the use of a cane

and the pattern of her speech had slowed and slurred

with halting sometimes-incoherent phrases. .

This embarrassed her, so she mostly just smiled and nodded.

Friends patted her on the back and hugged her neck;

But the penny was dropping; this was to be her last summer

here on the Cape

And she knew it. .

 

Once athletic and outgoing, she was in her day was

 a local beauty and the focus of much attention.

She taught sailing and golf to all us kids

and as a mother of five her house was always the 

 center of fun and activity.  .

Her laugh was infectious; it could be heard across the beach

and often around the late night kitchen tables

of friends and family cajoling over cards or the clatter of dishes.

She was a workhorse in the garden,

 and a volunteer to all that was noble and good.

Full of life, grace and charm  her confidence rubbed off her

as an inspiration to us all .. .

 

The  kids of summer were now all grown standing at the door and saying their goodbyes,

“I heard your new home will be very nice; you can even bring your cat “

She nodded

“ I can't wait to come by and visit “ .....she smiled;

 Time was so cruel.

 .

The past year hadn't been good.

Her husband; the great love of her life had died.

Then unexplainably her balance had gone off

and her speech and memory were flawed and starting to go.

Her kids worried about her. They talked in whispers about what to do.

Then when she was having her coffee one morning

 and staring out to sea; they came to see her

 and talked to her about selling her house

and going into a nursing home this September

…nursing home? Sell the house? . This house?

….. SEPTEMBER is only a scant 3 weeks away

 

The last of the guests said their goodbyes;and  their eyes said it all.

She watched them go with an appreciation of her life

 and a job well done;

Heck she remembered them all as kids,

 playing and running when all these fine homes

 were nothing but a cluster of summer shacks

made of driftwood built on gravel roads by the oceans edge.

 Handmade by fathers and grandfathers from before the Second World War.

 

Peering across the water she recalled

 how the children in her day fished and crabbed

and sailed all summer long in Beetle Cats.

 Everyday was an adventure; a day sail here and  there 

 to uncharted beaches of Montemoy ,Egg or maybe Nantucket.

Then at night   crammed cheek by jowl inside those driftwood jewels

 with uncles and cousins sharing beds, baths and a kitchen table

 made splendid and plentiful with natures gifts from the sea .

 

In those  days sisters slept with sisters

 and brothers with brothers

Boats and beach craft were shared endeavors

 as was doing the dishes at night.

Here in these cozy hooked rug cottages

 under the ancient sea bleached wood

with their swinging hurricane lamps grandfathers

 and great uncles told stories of the sea.

Great yarns about fishing, boats and  travel

far off wars and places of adventure  that made

 the children wide eyed in wonder. . ,

 

Brown as a berry she fished and crabbed with the boys

 then made her self pretty at night to sit out under the stars

 with other girls who dreamed of romance

and what the future might bring.

 Summertime was a moveable feast among all the cottages

 as a potpourri of friends and family  drifted from one cottage

 to another in a roundtable of memorable meals

made merry with catches of fresh lobster,

 sea bass, sweet summer corn, garden vegetables

 and pots of sweet piping hot clams spread out on newspapers 

  for all to enjoy

 

Crowded with aunts uncles, teenagers and babies

 it was a beggars ball of endless summer

where the fluttering  cotton curtains in small floral's 

 ushered in a briny sea breeze to mix with the smells

 of warm bread, cooked crab, and pies made from the blueberry bushes

 just outside.

Snug in their beds with star filled skies out their windows,

the children could hear the song of the surf

 and the old familiar voices of the adults, now long past,

 talking story   and singing songs made boisterous with

the stink of   gin and tonic, and the shuffle of cards as June bugs

 bumped the screen door fighting for the dim lantern light 

 and the crusty aroma of pipe tobacco

and spilt corkage of wine and clam broth .  

 

 .

The Cape has all changed she thought;

 most of it is unrecognizable

Where there was once summer shacks

 there is now Mcmansions, and vinal sided   Vulgarvilles.

 stuffed into cul de sacs that don't make any sense .

Quaint little shops of her youth have been transformed into dryvit malls; with hideous sized parking lots selling stuff that no one needs.

Grand children who once entertained themselves with sail and sea

 now are now smitten with video and the clever clap trap of technology 

Churlish with their gadgets and fashions

 they bridle at the simplicity of making your own fun

 and why not? .  

 

Romantic windswept lonely beaches of her youth

 have all been bought and sold.

Their entrance like those of the publics require tax stickers and permits.

 The One hundred dollars worth of groceries you bought  just a few years ago

 now costs two

. And to go anywhere on the roads now you have better

double your time in getting there.

.

The Ocean is still here though. That never changes

Everyone has a personal relationship with the sea.

Even those who have never seen it it’s like a song,

a memory of birth that transcends the ages to our very origins.

 

The Guests had said their goodbyes;

and as her children did the tidy up she announced she was going for a swim.

Her daughters looked at one another briefly

for approval and since this was something she often did

 said ok as they would be another hour with the clean up.

 

The sun was going down and in about an hour

 it was to be the end of a picture perfect day

With her suit on and her long gray hair brushed trailing

over her back she made her way to the

waters edge hobbling on her cane.

 

She stared out over the vast expanse of the sound

and put on her swimming cap then taking a breath 

  planted her cane firmly into the golden sands

 like a determination unto   life. Itself.

 

The colors at the end of this day were outstanding

She drank it all in, the bejeweled shells on the   beach,

the soaring terns, the emerald green water,

and the wisps of purple cloud floating over a perfect sea.

Her sea.

 

Free of her cane and limitations

She eased herself into the warm fresh salt   water

and let its folds envelope her as if she were

in her mothers womb again.

She pushed off and stroked the water in rush

of sparkling blue water and bubbling pink sea foam

 imaging herself to be as a child again

swimming  along with the current and stroking the shore line

with its cast of drift wood shacks in one last swim before dinner;

 where her mother and father now long dead waited supper for her. .  . .

 

In august it was always one last swim

before they closed the house for the summer and headed off for school.

One last swim before college,

one last swim before marriage, and now

one last swim before September

 

She swam with the song of the ocean;

letting memory and the tide wash over her with

a language long  familiar to her body and skin . . .

One with the sea she swam,

The sun arcing now becoming blood red

on the waters of the horizon;

its rays making dark purple the tidal pools

 where horseshoe and hermit crab sequestered for the evening

in pock marked shells waiting for the rising full moon

to illuminate their  kelp green nocturnal paradise.amid the  secrets of their underworld.

       

 

At 6 PM a report was received by the coast guard

of an elderly woman gone missing while swimming

 in front of her family home somewhere near the port of Harwich.

Her frantic daughters made the report

 after searching for her just barely 20 min's

 after she entered the water

. They knew she was still in the water

 because there was her cane stabbed into the ground

 like a post card left  in the corner of a screen door.

At 8:30 PM the coast guard off the Bass river

 shipping channel recovered a body.

It was found by Helicopter search light

It was said she was smiling and still  wearing her pearls.

 

. Michael