I'm not a beach guy. In fact, there aren't many things that would drive me to agree to schlepping umpteen hours to a beach for two weeks. The criteria for doing so this year, naturally at the request of my wife, were very convincing. Our newborn, Otis, would be 4 weeks old and probably very fussy (he was). And so, there would be lots of family support in the form of grandmothers and aunts (there was). Additionally, someone brilliantly suggested that my in-laws rent the same house that my family rented for the week following their rental (they did). So, it was a no-brainer. All of our family support would be at the beach anyway, so we might as well go where they could be useful (we did, and they were).Our extremely long drive to our home for two weeks took a total of 27 hours, door-to-door. Granted, it included a hotel midway, but it also included stop-and-go traffic bad enough to trigger PTSD-esque flashbacks to the seven years I spent stopping and going while living in the DC area. The drive home was strategically much more palatable thanks to some coffee-and-chewing-gum fueled early morning and late night driving.
I'm calling it a success. In fact, I'm adamant about it; it was a huge success. Family dynamics were thick, but so was the menu. I paddled a kayak in the surf more in 14 days than I had in the past 14 months. I was even able to get a few evening surf sessions in big 6 foot waves that, on more than a few occasions, flipped me to end over ejection provoking end. And, collecting a kayak and paddle among big waves with a strong riptide and no flotation spells a struggle. It was exhausting, and incredibly fun.
Despite my initial proclamation (not a beach guy), being at the shore with Indie, Otis, and their cousins brought about wonderful beach memories from my own childhood. Parents smeared on sunscreen and started happy hour early and the kids dug in the sand, played in the surf, and went to bed exhausted. Then, at the end, Molly and I had a romantic sunset stroll on the final evening.
But there was one particular evening that really made it worthwhile.
My father-in-law is a cancer fighter. That is, he's not a survivor as of yet because it has been less than two years since his last chemo treatment. But he's cancer-free with under 6 months to go. In two years I've watched him waste away to less than 130 pounds while spending the majority of some days doubled over in pain. An active man for decades, at his worst he couldn't muster the energy to walk a block. But I have not heard him complain, aside from one day, when he told me, "I'm sick of this old man shit; I want to have some fun."
He paddled his recently purchased sea kayak exactly four times in the week he was at the beach, and all but one of those rides ended in a capsize. Each capsize was followed by me and others swimming out to him to help drag his heavy boat ashore, a seriously difficult task. Yet every time I could see that he was more excited than he'd been before to keep trying.
When he paddled off the beach for his last attempt, we (his spotters) watched anxiously as he did everything right (when a wave is coming at you, lean back and paddle as hard as you can) and finally made it to a point out beyond the crashing waves. He was completely out of our reach, and capsizing at that point would have required long, hard work to retrieve the boat. Both I and his son began swimming out, anticipating the worst. I could hardly see him as I dove under each oncoming wave, but watched as he carefully turned himself around among the deep swells. Then, as if the physics of wave surfing all of a sudden made sense to him, I watched my cancer fighter father-in-law ride a huge swell 50 yards from sea to the beach. All of a sudden, I was swimming back to shore as he zipped past me, just forward of the crashing crest, squealing like a kid on a carousel. I think that we all closed our eyes for a second and tried to let the memory burn into our heads a little.
All choked up, I acknowledged that the wave he rode was the single most positive moment I've witnessed in the 3 years I've known him; even more inspiring than all the clean PET scans.Git r dun!
