"To live in hearts we leave behind, is not to die..." -Thomas Campbell Every afternoon they
walked. Rain or shine . When they were younger. As they grew older it became
apparent that they would need rain gear. So one day, they bought matching rain
coats with hoods and boots that would not leak.
They laughed at themselves. Married 60 years and able to laugh.
Then
they would walk down the lane, past their little house with the wrought iron
gate. To the beach. To the sand. To where the tide
washed in and out and left treasures. Small hermit crabs, sand dollars
and shells. So many shells. Their house was filled with them.
Sixty
years ago they had walked down to the same beach. The tide pools were full of sea urchins and starfish. He had
proposed there. She said yes.He didn’t have a ring.
But he found a large abalone shell in
the tide pool and gave it to her.
When
they got married and bought their little house with the little wrought iron
gate, she placed the large shell on the mantle.
Over the years she moved it around the house, never quite satisfied
where it sat. She
used it to hold her sewing threads. He used it one season to hold his fishing
lures. During dinner parties it became an ashtray. The men standing around the abalone shell dropping their cigarettes, flicking ash into its pearly depths. At Christmas it held popcorn strings
for the tree.
Then
one year she died. He sat in their little
house with the wrought iron gate, and held
their shell. He had polished it. Her ashes he scattered at the beach where they used to walk. The
shell he placed on the kitchen table filling its centre with mandarin oranges.
A
year later he died. And the shell passed to my parents. My
mother kept thread in the shell as well. And my dad used it as an ash tray.And
Christmas cards and Candy inevitably found their way to it. I would put my little dolls in its great bowl and pretend it was
a magical carriage for Cinderella.
And
today it sits by our fireplace. Full of stories Sometimes
a small cat will climb in and purr and mew and sleep. But
I will always imagine my grandparents walking to the ocean, hand in hand, like
they did. Hand
in hand all those years. With the rain and sun and wind dancing round .Hand
in hand I see them. I see the abalone shell by the fire and I remember them……
Photographs 2022
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