Part of our trip to spend my birthday weekend with my parents had included a promise to Luke that we would take him to the beach. With my grandfather likely to pass at any minute, my parents ended up spending all of July 24 in Waycross with him, which is completely understandable and appropriate.
However, I knew that sitting around a medical compound waiting around for his great-grandfather to die was not the best way for Luke to spend his time. So, with my parents' blessing and encouragement, we stayed and took him to the beach while they traveled to be with Pa-Paw. I hated for them to miss it, since Luke loves the beach so much (and they love watching him enjoy it), but it seemed the most logical answer since we were not guaranteed any time to get to the beach after this point, with funerals and family clearly coming up immediately. We needed to let him have a little fun while there was time.
Unfortunately, the tides were not being cooperative. Melanoma Girl here can't go to the beach except in the mornings or in the evenings. Unfortunately, that coincided with low or lay tide on both the 24th and the 25th. Tides wouldn't be decent until the 28th or so, and who knows if we would even still be there or have time to get to the beach. So we went, even knowing conditions were not ideal.
Look at how flat the water is! It was more like a lake; it was still enough that Luke could actually go out and swim in the ocean, something he had never really done before due to the currents.
He still managed to have some fun, but I know he was disappointed at the severe lack of wave action, and it broke my heart.
My grandfather actually did not pass away on my birthday but on the following day. That gave my parents time to come home and present me with an ice cream birthday cake they had picked up on their way back to the house. I was really touched, since I had expected nothing with all of the chaos of the day. The next few days were wrapped up in funeral arrangements and the actual burial, with lots of extended family in town. After everyone else had departed, we ended up with the evening of July 28th unexpectedly free.
And with high tide coming in and not due until 7, we packed a bunch of leftovers in a cooler and headed to the beach for waves and a picnic.
Much better!
having a beachy birthday
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