The beach was her favorite place. The rare summers we weren’t able to make it to the beach for one reason or another were difficult for her. I used to think she was sad because she was missing out on some level of expected relaxation. Then I became a parent, and it quickly became apparent that a vacation with children is seldom relaxing. It is work. It is preparation. It is planning (not just the trip, but each day and each activity around the kid’s schedule). It is money. And all of that adds up to sacrifice. I know I’m not the same mom she is, she was, but I know we would agree that it’s not really sacrifice when you see the memories made and moments. I could write pages on her at the beach but instead this year I was overwhelmed by the depth of which I felt her absence.
I have been blessed with amazing family and supporters don’t get me wrong, but nothing replaces the role of a mother. Nothing replaces the help of a Nan as willing and loving as she. As we loaded in the van to leave I couldn’t help but think she would have been sitting in my passenger seat or would have begged to take Silas in the car with them. When we arrived at the house, she would have taken the boys. No- they would have ran to her (I pray Silas never forgets running into her arms). She and Dad would have taken Elijah down to the shore for his first beach experience, even though I would have asked to wait for me, they would have recorded it so “its like I was there”. (Even the thought of things that would have made me mad wounded me with force without her). I really doubt I would have had to feed Elijah one meal at the house as I know I wouldn’t even have to ask her; she would have delighted in the chore. (It breaks me that Elijah won’t know the sound of Nan’s “nom nom nom” as she smiles and bounces her head side to side). Jeremy suggested we buy the boys some souvenir sweatshirts as we headed to the boardwalk on a particularly chilly night- now that one was cutting.
Of course I’m not going to let my boys go cold, and of course my lovely husband’s idea of getting them sweatshirts was a simple and rational solution. But did I share what I was feeling in the moment? Did I even really let myself feel it? Lord, no. I was not prepared to show how present my grief could easily arrive, because…. Well I don’t have a good “because”. Maybe I couldn’t show it because it was such an unexpected guest to me at the time too. It is unlike anything else I have ever experienced, unlike any emotion I have ever felt because it spears to be completely uncontrollable; the most unexpected scenarios trigger it. And when the trigger is pulled it releases the strangest array of hurt, tenderness, and love.
How could I share all of that over a conversation about what kind of sweatshirt the boys need? So instead I simply shrugged off suggested stores saying, “they won’t have their size” and other excuses until finally I caved and walked in a store found an embroidered zip-up hoodie for both boys (not the screen printed ones she would hate) and simply said “these are good” and paid. We walked the remainder of our evening and I can’t remember anything else we did or discussed. I remember glancing at my boy’s and their hoodies and I remember dwelling on all the summers she bought a similar sweatshirt and would wear it for an hour and end up tying it around her waist. I thought on every OC bench we sat and ate ice cream, spilling it on the new sweatshirt. I felt angry she wasn’t there to see the boys. I felt so fragile and tender. And I felt so loved for such sweet memories… Greif man. All the while my lovely family probably thinking, “Man, Lauren really doesn’t like the kids sweat shirt options here.”
I thought that was the worst of it for the week, but then unpacking from a day at he beach I saw it hanging there, her pink chair. My husband was already unloading and we were discussing how exhausting the beach is now with two littles and how much our beach experience has shifted. He hung up the borrowed beach chairs from our rental and exclaimed how many chairs came with the rental, then I looked up and said “that one is mom’s” and pointed to the pink chair. If the sweatshirt situation was a trigger pull this one must have been a double trigger. The emotions flooded, but this time my stomach fell through too. It wasn’t just memories of something like the beach chair we used that day. It was HER chair. It was where she should have been until 5 minutes before dinner and everyone thinking we are going to be late because she’s still down at the beach, and yet she manages to make it all work. It was where Elijah should have spent the day playing in the tide between her legs. It was where Silas should have been sitting every time she went into the ocean to “cool off” as he yelled to her “I took your spot Nan.” It was where I should have found her, sitting beside Rachel, as I glanced up from the ocean to make sure the pull hadn’t taken Jeremy and I too far sideways. It was where I knew no matter the stress of life around us, I knew she was happy.
Wounded, I just got Elijah and walked to the elevator pretending my lack luster temperament was the result of a good yet tiring day at the beach. With such a weighted soul the only conclusion I could arrive at was, it’s funny how we attach such sentiment to ordinary things, and yet it’s not so funny when you see those things without the person to who they “rightfully belong.”
But the painful beauty of it all- she’s not in her pink chair anymore, instead she is with whom she rightfully belongs.
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