Waves

I believe people should get a proper send off when they leave this world, so I say my farewells on the beach, with castles made of sand and flying colors in the sky. My dad’s send off was my second one doing it my way, rather our way— I said goodbye to Elizabeth in the sky from the sand; I said goodbye to my dad in the sand and water.

I beat my sister to the funeral home to get his ashes. She was going to divide them and bury some at our church and maybe somewhere else, and I couldn’t let that happen.

Daddy was very specific when he told me what he wanted, after the Falcons game at his place at the lake, where he built himself a working lighthouse in his front yard. A friend of mine lives there now, but she’s MAGA and unfriended me, so there’s that. Ironically, she’s the one who gave me the sandcastle idea.

Anyway, Daddy opened with, “I’m not going to the beach next month.” Whoa. Something serious was afoot—this is a man who would drive from Augusta to the beach in the middle of the night, just to take a moon and starlit stroll, barefoot at low tide, with the laughing baby waves bubbling over his feet while the perpetual motion of the tide, the paradox of stasis that the ocean is soothed his soul and cleared his head. Then he would get back in his car and drive home, maybe stopping off for a beer along the way, taking dark backroads through South Carolina and its dusky all-night bars, then getting right back in, always fighting the good, or good-intention-fueled fight. And he wasn’t going to Hilton Head for the first week of November, not going to have fresh grouper at Fitzgerald’s, not going to walk on the beach.

Then he told me that he wanted to be cremated, and he wanted his ashes to go in the ocean in front of the lighthouse on Tybee.

“Daddy, that’s federal property. It’s illegal,” is what came out of my mouth.

He leaned over the arm of his recliner and gave me that no-bullshit look of his that he probably perfected in the cradle and said, “Why do you think I’m telling you instead of your sister?”

Fair. I’m not known for having an affinity for rules. Then he went into detail about what he wanted to go to whom, and I paid close attention. But I also asked if he didn’t want some of his ashes at Honey Creek, which he and I share a love for. He shuddered and said, “Divide my ashes?” It was the first time I ever saw my dad shudder at a thought, so a day or two after the funeral, my sister and I argued about it. There’s no getting past me when I stonewall.

I kept my word. It was nearly a year before I could put him to rest—I wanted a sunset high tide, one last sunny day on the beach with my dad, watching the ships, riding the waves, and building a sandcastle. I booked a condo on Airbnb, a driving distance away from the lighthouse, and I got a parking ticket that I never paid.

I couldn’t find a priest, but I had Holy Water that was blessed by Mother Teresa, and I had the Book of Common Prayer on my kindle. I was the celebrant, and I consecrated the ground, in a circle, and let the bottom arc of the circle serve as the definition of where to dig the moat.

Sandscrapers and scoopers are a tremendous improvement over the flimsy shovels we had when I was a kid, but it was work. We listened to the beach music station, which is what my dad would have wanted. I played beach music at his wake—the photo slide show wasn’t set to that hokey new age instrumental music that he hated, but I chose beautifully appropriate songs—The Catalinas’ “Summertime’s Calling Me,” The Embers’ “I Love Beach Music,” and The Swingin’ Medallions’ “Be Young, Be Foolish, Be Happy.” My cousin and I drank bourbon in the bathroom, and we all wore purple, his favorite color, to his funeral, which filled me with the most pervading sense of peace I’ve ever felt, singing his favorite hymns, which are mainly about fellowship. I didn’t fall apart until the following Saturday night, at the Sam Bush concert, up in the nosebleed section with a friend who didn’t want to let me go home. I bought the poster before we took our seats, before the grief knocked me ass over teakettle, like when I misjudge a wave and it gets on top of me instead of the other way around, banging my head into the ocean floor, salt water coming out of my eyes and nose when I finally surface. Grace in motion, pure poise. I never framed the poster.