I Remember
I remember my father’s bare, freckled shoulders
bright orange swim trunks
black fabric around his left calf.
He’d sit in the sun
his head back in our green and yellow
striped beach chair
His sunglasses with the attachment around his neck still show up vividly in my mind all these years later
Where me and my siblings lost copious amounts of sunglasses to the power of the sea,
my father never would
He loved to be in the water
He’d take me out on the purple and blue striped boogie board when my siblings started to get on my nerves
Feel the tide —
1
..2
…3
he’d say as he pulled me back
and pushed me forward to ride to shore on a wave
He’d always grunt as he said three
putting his strength into sending me off with the tides.
He was so patient in all moments, especially these
This was where I felt safest
In the wild
unpredictable ocean that reminded me that I was even smaller than I felt
I knew I was safe with my father
I remember the first summer without my father
his absence was felt most ferociously in that beach town
No one there to push me with a wave
to hold me up when I couldn’t touch the ocean floor.
I remember going out there alone with the boogie board that would forever belong to myself and my father
letting secret tears fall
down
my salt-water-
soaked face
