OPINION: Timing life by beach trips

The boys have known their entire lives that we go to the beach in October. Twenty-seven years ago, I started going with my wife’s family. Back then, we didn’t have kids. She has been going with her family since she was a kid for over 40 years. Same beach. Same condo. Same food. 8-10 pounds of Peel ’em and eat ’em Shrimp, heavy Old Bay Seasoning—every night except when we go to the same restaurant one night during the week for hamburgers just to break things up. As surely as the sun comes up in the morning, we go to the beach every October. 

Both my wife’s grandparents went. Then granddad died. For several years, Granny went without granddad. She has now joined him in Heaven. “Time, like an ever-rolling stream, bears all its sons away…” 

I can mark the seasons of life by who goes to the beach. It seemed like only yesterday when we took five little boys with us. One of those boys has now graduated from college. Two are in college. Two are teenagers. The hair I do have has changed colors over the years. Now, I take a blood pressure cuff and a pill box with me. Back then, time seemed to be moving slowly. It’s true, time flies. 

Our days are filled with balconies, books, and baseball. There is nothing like the feeling of sitting on the balcony drinking coffee and watching the sun come up. Days are spent sitting on the beach, never actually making it into the ocean, and reading book after book. The Prophet Jeremiah, Nathan Coulter, and Sean Dietrich went with me this year. Major League Baseball is always in the middle of the Division Series. This year we spent hours with the Braves, Dodgers, White Sox, Guardians Rays, Yankees, Brewers and Padres. In the New Kingdom, I am pretty sure there will be baseball. 

History marks time as BC and AD. We mark each year as BB and AB—Before Beach and After Beach. Months before we leave, we start a countdown. “Eight weeks from today we leave for the beach.” When the cotton fields start getting white around us, we know it’s time to pack it up and go to the beach. On the way to Florida we start seeing those “Happy Fall, Y’all!” signs. When we get back, it’s a little cooler at home, more leaves have fallen, and we pull out our sweatshirts. In the New Kingdom, I am pretty sure we will wear shorts, sweatshirts, and baseball caps, and there will be none of those “Happy Fall, Y’all!” signs. 

After all these years, we have lots of beach pictures. Some of those are printed photos— the kind you would take to Super D and get developed and remember to pick them up four years later. Most are photos on our phones. There are pictures of the ocean and the tremendous sunsets over the ocean. But mostly, the pictures are of the people who went to the beach. 

The importance of our annual beach trip is not the beach. It’s the people in our clan who go to the beach. Sure, there are things we really enjoy and traditions that are kept every year, but this week of the year is not about what we do, but who we do it with.

Dr. Todd E. Brady serves families at Arrington Funeral Directors.  He is also Chairman of the Board of Trustees at Augustine School.  He and his wife, Amy, have five sons and are members of Cornerstone Community Church.  You may write to him at tbrady@afgemail.net.