It's day three of my 7-day writing course with Cole Schafer. Each day we receive a prompt and then have 55 minutes to write, edit, and post to a platform of our choosing. Today's prompt is: Write about a misfortune that has impacted your life and what you're doing to find acceptance.
I've always tried to live life without regrets. I was raised to see all situations with a silver lining, to "turn any obstacle into an opportunity," my mom would always say. But when I lost my dad in a car accident, the whole "everything happens for a reason'' rationale felt enraging.
In November, it will be 9 years since his passing and I still get PTSD from missed back-to-back calls, unknown numbers at strange hours, or the slightest hint of distress in my mom's voice. Loss has made me acutely aware of how thin the line really is between being here and now, and not.
I think back to the last phone call with my dad and it pains me that I can't remember what we spoke about. I used to reread our last texts and beat myself up over and over because it was about some guy I'd been dating.
So instead, I think back to my birthday two months before the accident. It was Labor Day weekend. We were at our favorite beach in Maine. It was surprisingly empty and the sun was just beginning to set.
I'd spent many days on this beach with my dad. We'd walk for miles, talking about life and the places he wanted to take my mom, the trips we'd love to go on as a family, the renovations he dreamed about for our house by the bay.
But most times, we'd just walk for stretches in silence, scanning for sand dollars. I remember as a kid, trying to match his long strides only to awkwardly skip and run to keep up. This ease and comfort we'd finally found had taken many years, misunderstandings, arguments. But mostly, a lot of laughter. Usually at each other.
That day on the beach, my dad insisted on bringing his new L.L. Bean tent, the Sunbuster Folding Shelter he'd so proudly purchased after what I imagine to have been an extremely rigorous vetting process. One that likely included hundreds of consumer reports, multiple trips to Beans where he consulted numerous employees for hours, only to leave empty handed and probably return the following day with another set of very serious questions about durability, as if the only family from Maine to have never voluntarily (nor enthusiastically) camp would be taking said sun tent on a rugged trek through Antarctica.
To most, this sounds like a typical and very logical item (if not a necessity). But knowing my dad, I saw this tent as more of a gesture in comfort, care, and thoughtfulness. A far cry from beach days as a kid, getting crammed into the back of our Ford Explorer as he methodically and carefully sandwiched his towel-wrapped surfboard (god forbid it may endure a ding) between the three of us. After a 30-minute drive of holding onto this surfboard for dear life as it hung halfway out the trunk, we arrived at his favorite surf spot and he'd quickly unload us with no snacks or towels as he paddled out. I remember watching him for hours catching waves, he looked so happy and content. It was one of many lessons I had learned as a child in entertaining myself and falling in love with the ocean, whether I liked it or not.
So, to be with my dad nearly twenty years later on that same beach for my birthday, only this time with a picnic he'd packed complete with tuna fish sandwiches (he even remembered to add celery!), Cape Cod chips, my favorite cookies, lots of laughs, and a sun protective tent that took an impossibly long time to assemble, and as evidence of the remaining stakes on the sand, it was clear we hadn't done it correctly.
In those moments of silence between bites of tuna sandwich and salty chips, I remember catching glimpses of his slumped shoulders and the color of his eyes, were they blue or grey? I could never really tell. But after spending years with this complicated man I struggled so badly to understand, I could see myself in him.
We sat there staring out at the ocean until we were the only ones left on the beach.