We have always vacationed at the beach. To me, this is time in our spiritual home, away from life’s distractions and expectations. Our beach vacation is sacred family time. You must marry in to join us. Seriously.
We have our traditions but mostly it boils down to a week of meaningful discussions, time in nature, and meals around the table. Memories are re-lived while new ones are formed.
It’s a connectional a time in a “thin” space, a concept from Celtic mythology. As Peter Gomes, a Harvard theologian, wrote:
“There is in Celtic mythology the notion of ‘thin places’ in the universe where the visible and the invisible world come into their closest proximity. To seek such places is the vocation of the wise and the good — and for those that find them, the clearest communication between the temporal and eternal. Mountains and rivers are particularly favored as thin places marking invariably as they do, the horizontal and perpendicular frontiers. But perhaps the ultimate of these thin places in the human condition are the experiences people are likely to have as they encounter suffering, joy, and mystery.”
This year we made a leap of faith. We moved to a new cottage after 24-years at the previous rental. “Let’s Do Sunset” was “our” second home. It connected us as a family through high school and college years, new jobs, grandchildren, retirement, surgery recoveries, and Alzheimer’s. Its bones were strong as we even rode out a hurricane in it one year.
We returned last summer after Dad’s death. It was hard and healing. The “and” of grief at work again. I must admit this favorite house felt constrained… limited… binding, for lack of the right word. I felt bound to my loss there. The complexity of caring for Dad with Alzheimer’s dampened the silliness and joy that had oozed from that cottage for more than two decades.
Last year, I wrote a letter to the owner (via the rental property) sharing my gratitude for their generosity of opening their house to our family, and all that it had meant to us for so long, but it was just too much to stay there.
Our hearts were better for our time there, but a new season awaited us. A new cottage this year which we began to make “our” beach home with lasting traditions and new memories.
Yes, we drove by the old cottage and saw it caring for a new family as they ate dinner on the screened-in porch where Dad and I always worked on a puzzle. It was both healing and sad to see; a reminder of Dad’s absence.
But as grief has shown me in so many moments over the past 2.5 years, love remains.
I felt Dad in our traditions. I ached for him looking for seashells on the beach. I saw him in the clouds. I cried for him watching the sunset. I wrote to him at Kindred Spirit. I talked to him walking on the beach after I finished a book with this compelling charge by Francis Weller that spoke to my heart on so many levels:
“Slow down, uncenter and forget about yourself in the moment, let the world find you, love what is nearby, share your grief with others, say thank you, learn the stories from where you live and from where your ancestors came, be a wee bit wild in your imagination, and come home.”
I miss you Dad and am glad you traveled with us to our new home.
