The Life Lost and Found

February 20

Dedicated to my husband, Steven. The one who got away, even though he didn't mean to.

How's that for a momentous beginning to this maiden notebook? I can imagine you laughing, Steven, in your bold way. I miss your bold way of laughing.

On a whim, I put this notebook in my cart when I stopped in Corpus last night for groceries. Then it was on to the campground. When I pulled into my spot, relief loosened muscles I hadn't realized I'd been holding. My first voyage in the Winnie without you.

I wasn't sure I could do it, but I'm here, my love, with Bella, and we are safe.

We took our first morning walk on the beach today. I was eager to experience all that I remember from this place, sluffing off my sandals at the beach's entrance and stepping onto the firm, yet, giving sand, synching up to the alluring, ceaseless rhythm of the ocean, squinting into the bluest sky. What I didn't expect was dead fish.

Dead fish thickly littered the beach for a good stretch. As you can no doubt imagine, Bella was keenly interested in taking a closer look, pulling on her leash. Our walk turned into a tug of war, me on one end and the dead fish on the other. I am under no illusion as to which end of that rope she preferred.

The fish, I was told later by a park ranger, were victims of the unusual cold snap here on the Gulf. It was the first such snap in seventy years. Can you believe that I picked just this time to return to our favorite place? We always called this our favorite, and yet I've been gone from this beach for ten years. Why did we deprive ourselves for so long?

Thus the beach this morning was gruesome and spectacular. Once we were past the fish and Bella went back into her Golden good girl walking form, I found myself telling you in my head all about the fish carnage. You have been gone nine months, and my head is seldom free of things I wish to tell you.

February 21

I expected the pelicans to arrive for a fish feast yesterday and clean the beach. I remember the last time we were here, I saw armies of them flying overhead.

This morning the fish were still on the beach. I spied one lone pelican out over the ocean. Even the seagulls, which would surely be on the clean-up crew, and which should be plentiful, were absent. The birds that were on the beach, the small seabirds on stilts and the even smaller ones who skitter back and forth with the tide, showed no interest. There were plenty of insects on the job, though. They swarmed when Bella and I got too close in our morning tug of war.

Last night I dreamed that you were standing in the ocean calling the fish back home. You had a net in one hand and a conch shell in the other. Your hair was seaweed. You looked happy.

February 22

Even the ocean does not want the fish back. Spongy bits of sea foam speckled the beach this morning, marking a line showing how far the tide had come in overnight, well past the dead fish, before sweeping back out. Leaving them behind.

A man I met while walking on the beach informed me that the pelicans are not going to eat the dead fish. They prefer to do their own live fishing. You would have known that, always one for the science. Instead I am left to rely on strangers for my understanding.

I wonder how long the fish will lie on the beach. Decomposition without the aid of birds will be a long and tedious ordeal, flesh to bone to memory.

February 23

My wondering was put to rest this morning. Most of the fish were gone. Heavy equipment tracks told the tale that someone had scooped them up and taken them elsewhere to finish their decay. Out of sight, and more importantly, out of smelling range. The poor things had started to stink.

Here and there on the beach, a dead fish had been left behind. I mused they were left by the rangers as food for the seagulls when they return. Bella was delighted.

As we walked this morning, I spotted a pelican along the shore who appeared to be injured. She (or he, I have no clue, but I'll stick with she) was holding her right wing out at an angle from her body. As Bella and I approached, she made several attempts to fly away. She flapped both wings, got a bit of lift, then collapsed onto the sand every time.

You know me, Steven, a bleeding heart, hopelessly so. How many needy creatures did we rescue over the years? Or more accurately, I rescued (or tried to), while you stood by as my supporter. I couldn't walk away this time either and do nothing. I headed along the beach looking for a ranger.

Up ahead was one of the golf carts I have seen volunteers drive around in to pick up trash on the beach. I took off toward the cart and flagged down the man in a green volunteer shirt driving it.

When I reached him, I told him about the injured pelican and pointed in her direction. She was just a dark shape at this distance. "Will someone come and help it?" I asked.

"Is it a brown pelican? Because if it is, they will,” he said.

"I have no idea.”

He said he would drive down and take a look. He headed off, and Bella and I followed.

Maybe luck was on her side and she was the right pelican today. At least I hoped so.

Before I made it back to the pelican, I heard a vehicle behind me. I looked back up the beach and saw a white truck approaching. The rangers drive white trucks. I took off toward it.

When I got close enough, I flagged down the truck. It had the city name and logo on it, so not a ranger. I didn't know if the woman behind the wheel would get involved, but I told her about the pelican. She drove off toward the volunteer. I stayed put.

I watched as the two of them worked to corner and eventually capture the pelican. They carried her to the front of the golf cart where I could no longer see them. They were out of my view for a while. Shouldn't they be putting her in the truck or golf cart for transport? What were they up to? Putting her out of her misery? Wringing her neck with their bare hands?

I suddenly couldn't bear to know. I had done all I could for her. I wished her well on whatever journey she would be taking and headed back to the campground.

Her fate has troubled my mind ever since, as you would well know. One pelican out of the multitudes has made a nest in my heart.

February 24

Today I found a perfect, intact shell on our walk. There are plenty of broken ones on the sand I could load in my pockets. But my eye seeks the perfect ones, the ones that make it to the beach without a blemish. All that tumbling, rumbling, churning, stumbling, and they arrive whole. I long to be that resilient.

This one today was pure white with defined ridges, a blank artist's canvas already complete and exquisite. I will keep it.

I saw the volunteer from yesterday on the beach. He said the pelican's wing had been wrapped with fishing line, and a large, nasty fishing hook used to catch sharks was embedded in it. The volunteer had used bolt cutters to break the hook apart and release it from her wing.

When they finished their task, they let the pelican go to see if she could fly. Indeed she could and immediately took off, flapping her tremendous wings as she sailed out over the ocean.

Then she turned back toward them and glided low over their heads before soaring out to sea. Was she thanking them? My heart says yes.

When the volunteer and I parted, I walked away, my vision blurring. Soon, tears silently spilled out, as if I had been cracked open. I made no attempt to stop them. Bella was concerned, but I reassured her I was fine. And good dog that she is, she believed me.

The tears flowed for the pelican and the kind souls who released her. Then, in time, they came for us. Our clever plans for early retirement, our growing list of travel destinations. We were so certain it would all be ours. Until your heart betrayed us.

I shed a lot of tears when you died. And then I dried up, thinking that was my lot.

Until today.

I sit here tonight, tumbled as a shell rinsed by the surf, drained on the shore.

February 25

Overnight the ocean tossed up a tangled mass of seaweed on the beach. Bella and I investigated it this morning. Small, brownish stems that looked like branches plucked from a berry bush were covered with glistening, tiny balls and slender leaves. Seed pods hung in places from the stems. I collected a few boughs.

Farther on, I found a shell that looked like angel wings. Or a butterfly. Two undamaged halves held firmly together in the center.

My tenuous belief in angels has been further eroded these past months. I do, though, have an unshakable belief in butterflies.

I returned to the Winnie with the shell and the boughs of seaweed, which were quickly losing their supple luster. I will cast the boughs into the sea tomorrow.

February 26

I found an intact sand dollar, a rarity, on our walk this morning. I stuck it in my pocket.

Shortly after that, I saw a mother and her three young children playing on the beach ahead of us. I had seen the family arrive at the campground yesterday. As Bella and I approached, the mother smiled at me. The children waved and exclaimed in glee over Bella, who wagged her gorgeous Golden tail.

"Can we pet her?” one of the children, a girl who looked like the oldest, called.

I walked closer. “Yes, you may, if it is okay with your mom.”

Bella was in wiggly dog heaven at the idea of it. She has always been a fan of children. Bella would have been the perfect dog for grandchildren.

Their mother gave her consent. The children rushed to us and laid their hands all over Bella, calling her a beauty, marveling at how soft her fur was.

I felt the sand dollar in my pocket. “I found this today.” I pulled the shell from my pocket and held it out on my open palm.

The older girl stood up and peered at it. The younger two, a boy and girl, soon joined her. The children touched it gently, hands quieter than they had been with Bella.

“It's yours,” I said.

The children looked up at me, then at their mother. She nodded.

The children's eyes were wide as they thanked me, the older girl taking this gift from the sea out of my palm with reverence. One more hug and pet for Bella, and they were gone, chattering among themselves in their retreat.

We wanted children. But they never came, and we grew okay with that. We had each other, and we made a full life together. We never talked about what that might mean if one of us ended up alone, which confounds me now. We were so unprepared for mortality.

February 27

I dreamed of children last night. The details of them scampered away upon waking, but I know they were not the children from the beach. Maybe they were ours from another life, if such a miracle is possible. What lingers in my memory is their sweetness.

When Bella and I returned from our morning walk today, I found an envelope stuck to Winnie's door. I opened the envelope once I was inside and pulled out a colored drawing of a beach scene, the sky streaked with warm hues. On the beach was a unicorn, and a smiling mermaid floated on the ocean. Along the bottom was written “Thank you for the sand dollar” in a rainbow of colors, followed by three names, Cassandra, Caleb, and Charlotte. The children.

I thought then of pulling out my watercolors. I brought them with me this trip thinking maybe, finally, I could use them again. I would paint my own scene for the children, my thanks to their thanks. Which would bring another creation from them, and on and on we would go, remaining here together in this glorious, out of time place eternally.

Instead I went in search of tape. The only tape I could find was a roll of black electrical tape in a basket of odds and ends stowed in the bathroom. I cut off four small pieces and used them to secure the drawing to the refrigerator door. I hope the tape holds.

I will treasure this whimsical world conjured by children.

February 28

Leaving day, Steven. I take off for home within the hour.

I came back to this beach to resurrect you. And in a way, I did. Death was here in fish. Life was here in children. Someone cleans up our messes eventually.

I don't like this being without you, my love. But I am finding a way to go on. We didn't know we were waiting too long for joy. I will do better from here.