Goodbye Summer

It is only a week into “fall,” with summer unofficially over. Sure, the moon will have his say. But let’s face it, since school started, it is over.

Do you see thie picture included with this column? This is the same view of vacation I’ve had for the past three or more decades. It is what I think of when I think "beach."

It’s just a simple photo of my parents. They have their beach chairs dug down into the sand. They have the radio playing rock 'n' roll oldies. They pick a spot, camp out for the day, and really just relax.

We talk. We listen to the soft waves coming in on the beach. We enjoy the scene. We just soak it all in.

One thing remains the same. My parents are always there for us, all five kids, and both sets of parents. No matter where we go, they stay the same. It's us kids that change.

What I’ve been doing behind these chairs for the last three decades varies quite a bit. When I was a baby, my parents brought me to the ocean, and I promptly broke out into hives from the sun. I hated the sand; it was scratchy and, ugh, just everywhere. It was annoying.

When I was a young child, I was just like my son is now; I thought I was invincible. I could swim out as far as I liked, and nothing was going to happen to me. Boogie board in tow, I would run for the waves. I’d dive into the water and had a blast.

When I was a teen, I wanted to be “cool.” Teens don’t play in the sand or even surf much. We just want to seem as awesome as possible from our towel, placed as far as possible from our parents without them actually asking us to move it back. We don’t play or swim, we just soak in the rays (tough for a freckle-faced redhead to do, trust me).

Then, we were in the party days, but in a whole new way. We’d still go to the beach, but as the older siblings came of age, we also wanted to play and drink. We’d do tricks off the waves, accidentally smash beer bottles into pools, and sip margaritas as we rested by the pool. We built pyramids of empty beer cans and slowly sipped Bloody Marys to help get relief from our previous night of fun each next morning.

After the dating years began, we’d have new faces come and go as the siblings played trial and error in search for a life partner. We had many a new girlfriend, boyfriend, and even just our friends join our family for our annual beach trip.

A few years later, I began to have babies of my own, and my next eldest sister is due in November. The entire cycle has once again started over. Now, I have a 3-year-old diva who won’t get sand in her suit and a 6-year-old son that would boogie board, rash and all, for days if you let him.

But, one thing has remained the same. These are my parents, all four of them. They have been there every year. No matter what stage of life we kids were in, or who we had tagging along, they were there for us, their kids.

I love summer traditions—the warm weather, fireworks, the sports, the barbecues—but what I love most is my family and our annual traditions to the beach each year.

I love that I can know that in a world that is changing by the nanosecond, one thing can stay the same. I hope in several decades, my kids can look back and say the same.

Until then, goodbye summer! I will miss you while you are gone. And thank you parents, for making us such wonderful memories of a season gone by.