I Remember

Maura Kernell
Nov 5 · 1 min read

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

Maura Kernell

Written by

Figuring myself out while inconveniently addicted to Twitter @fly_me2_MARS