"Salt is healing"

When I chose the seascape that our mother did in the mid-80s for my June 3-June 14 Facebook cover page, I started thinking about how much she enjoyed the ocean.  She found that the combination of salt and water offered peace and tranquility.  

She would say, "Salt is healing," which would quickly be followed with: "If I could just get my feet in the ocean." 

I think it was the summer after her 90th birthday that she visited some of our family in Myrtle Beach. They did not let the fact that she needed a walker deter them. I'm sure there were oohs and ahs as she accepted their assistance and waded into the ebbs and flows of the tide.

As it happened, all of her sisters also loved the ocean. 

So when she saw a drawing of four sisters at the beach, she copied it.  Her skill with colored pencils was dwindling.

However, it gave her an idea.  She sent an email to her sister, Beth, who lived at Crescent Beach.

By this time, mother was 95 

How about if the four sisters walked out on the beach together? Their sister Thelma had died many years before, but all of them appreciated the healing power of the salt water.

Aunt Beth made an effort to make that happen. This is the best that she could do. And I suppose four sisters looking at the ocean still worked.

Within a year, mother was no longer ambulatory. It became time for her to leave the assisted living facility and share a room in the Health Care Center at Westminister Woods on Julington Creek.

Fortunately, although there was no beach, there was water, and she loved it when one of us pushed her wheelchair so that she could enjoy the Creek.  

On Father's Day 2021,  my son, Tray, who is grandchild #5, called me with an idea.  

Mother was so curious. "where are we going?"

"Is this okay?"  "Are we breaking a rule?  I think she was happy to be doing just that.  

That fun time was three years ago. The next year - two years ago now - we were saying goodbye. It's been a strange experience knowing that our mother is no longer an active presence in my life, which brings me back to what she said about SALT.

I believe I need a tissue.

May you have enough sunshine in your life,  to make you appreciate the shadows