Daybreakers
A red soda bottle cap
A flock of small Styrofoam bits covered with sea lichen
A piece of a label with an unfamiliar logo
A scrap of fine mesh netting
I’m beach cleaning as the sun rises – the clouds smudging the days first halo as it climbs above the horizon. I’m filling a bag I picked up in the parking lot of Spanish River Park. I started doing this when Julian and I came down from the city last year. I'm not sure why I started. I keep doing it. I start at lifeguard station 17, past the stacks of beach chairs and umbrellas covered in blue canvas tarpaulins. I walk north.
A white plastic cap
A clear plastic strip
A soda bottle
A child’s tiny shovel and mold in the shape of a dinosaur
These walks are form of meditation for me. A daily affirmation that I kept up after the services, after the guests had left and the chairs with the black bunting had been cleared away. I pass lifeguard house 16. I bend over to pick up something small and my back starts to loosen up from the efforts. Warmth flows through my hips, my knees, my calves.
I push through the double-doors and walk past the living statues that line the halls of the nursing facility. Eyes fixed on the distance – a woman yells ‘help me’ over and over again as a staffer tries to calm her. You don’t remember the independent living apartment we had painted to match your home in New York, all the preparation and sorting we did of what to keep, what to sell, what to donate, what to store. That was July. It’s October now.
I bring you another ice cream cup – the only thing you will eat since your bariatric surgery in August failed. You’ve lost language – your head lolls to the right in a permanent list. Last week the staff brought over your pictures and furniture to make the double room feel like an apartment. The small, disregarded television is tuned endlessly to the news. A steady stream of nurses and aids file in and out – clearing your untouched lunch and adjusting the bed. The ice cream melts on the rolling tray that hovers over your dismantled midriff. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
A large bit of a cooler
The wooden sole of a shoe, scrubbed clean of any identifiers or
straps; on the bottom the numbers: 10 11
A weaved plastic label that says “Sunnyside*”
I take a glancing blow from an incoming wave and regret not wearing my beachcomber shorts. My sweatpants leg unravels and I stop to adjust it. The wind is picking up off the water – the pipers dart in and out, eating something tiny from airholes that appear in the sand as the wave recedes. I don’t know what it is, but they know.
As I walk, the ocean changes from iron to stainless steel to copper as the sun breaks above the clouds for the first time. I reach Bark Beach, my turn-around point on Fridays. There’s a cacophony of dogs and owners who have entered from the north end of Spanish River playing in the waves.
Your nurse calls me up to your big house on the hill. Parking, I pass the Subaru we bought together when you moved here, its windows left open to the elements. You have become upset – you can’t find your credit cards. Julian and I shut them off last spring when the credit card companies started calling about the bills. I ask if you need anything from the store. During the night you emailed me, addressing me as you would have addressed my father, with complaints about your son, who you are convinced is Julian, but is actually me. The doctor has told us you can’t stay here alone anymore. Cerebral Atherosclerosis. Frontal temporal lobe infarction. We’ve found a place in Florida. We will sell the houses and pack all the things and we will all move to Boca Raton.
I turn around to head back south. The beach seems cleaner and I wonder if I'm the only person doing this now. When I started, I seldom saw another. Just the daybreakers who seem to cycle every few months – arriving – watching – trying to wipe away that which wakes them up at 5 am and brings them here. Some seem to be running from something. Some seem to be trying to fix something. I come here too. There’s a Brooklyn-beautiful girl gazing expressionlessly at the ocean – arms folded in a prayer/serenity pose. She doesn’t see me. Her eyeline never wavers from the limitless sea. She is new. She will come here for a while.
The phone rings. “Your mother is actively dying” says the nurse from Trustbridge. I ring my son – we arrange to meet at the nursing facility. I shut down my computer and grab a Bluetooth speaker and a sweatshirt. I’ve been back in Florida for just a few days, there has been an election, a rushed photoshoot in South Carolina, and now this day is upon us. Earlier, I had created a playlist of your favorite songs – Jim Croce, Gordon Lightfoot, Neil Diamond. Songs from 1975. I put a few DVDs in my bag as well. Some snack bars. A water carafe. It’s November 13th.
The rolled over blow-up end of a green balloon
A Caesar salad dressing bottle full of diluted seawater
A blue plastic puzzle piece
A large seagull flies alongside me as I do my morning rituals. He thinks I have things he might wish to eat. He alights, effortlessly, upon the thermals that have travelled all the way from Africa to greet this day. As a man who has spent the past 20 years living between I-78 and the Garden State Parkway, surrounded by the endless hiss of tires on tarmac, the air is a revelation. The smell of the sea and childhood and vacations. It provides comfort to those who seek it. I seek it.
My sister and her husband arrive from California. We walk on the beach, towards the south end. It’s very clear; there is no wind. It’s a good day for it. I’ve developed a cough. I try not to cough. We take turns speaking.
I’ve brought a small garden blower, and as fancy a trowel as I could find at Home Depot. There will be a Lutheran pastor later. He will say words that none of us truly understand but it will feel right to say them. Julian's mother will be here. Your ex-in-laws. My sister asks if we should keep some small amount of your ashes. I don’t think that’s what you would have wanted. What would we do with them. I demure. Devoid of religious instruction, we all stand together and try to say the things and take turns with the trowel and your ashes go out over the water.
A modern, three deck yacht sits high on the horizon. It tacks into the wind towards Lake Boca and the large harbor that give this place its name. A big scrappy beach truck approaches me, gathering up the litter and seaweed. I tip my hat and he taps his horn. I walk back to the exit in the new soft sand that he leaves behind in his wake. Entering the parking lot, I throw away the bag after putting the shovel and dinosaur mold on the wall where children often gather. I wash my feet. Walking across the soft tropical grass feels pleasing and wipes away the last of the beach sand from my toes. Soon it will be spring again.