A Love Story

What is harder to face than the end of summer days? How many times have we sat on the beach and hoped for a reprieve, some magic shine of harvest moon that would grant our wishes to never have to leave, to allow us to linger forever in the setting sun and roast lobsters over coals in the soft air of summer evenings?

So this year, with the crash of summer falling down around our ears in illness and hospitals, we were all the more grateful to escape by grace of God for a few days, yes we reassured ourselves, all we need is a few days. To sit in the sun, taste salt air, smell the brine, and let the quiet work itself into our chests and loosen the knot that had bound us up the past months.  We would extend our vacation by two days, taking advantage of the Labor Day holiday to come home on Monday instead of Saturday.  It would be our little  escape after the family left, the truffle core of our few days away.

But you can't always transform a sow's ear into a silk purse.  The melancholy of endings infused the air. We squirmed in our sand chairs, walked the water's edge in search of heart rocks, and pretended that the sun wasn't setting too early in the sky.  The days just did not fit us and we were overly polite with each other, none of us speaking the truth of our sadness:

there was much more than the good bye to summer in our hearts.

 

On our last evening, we came down to the beach for the  last walk. The evening clouds had tumbled in and we all agreed that it was best to leave at first light the next day to avoid the holiday traffic and give us a longer day at home before the inevitable return to work and school. The uncertainty of all that waited at home was crushing and we were sunk in our own thoughts as we returned to the car and brushed the last of the sand off our feet. We pulled down the windows despite the wind, reluctant to leave the smell of fried onions and salt air, the essential summer fragrance of our days.

I craned my neck to catch my last view of the water.  The parking lot was empty save for a few surfers who were washing their feet in the  showers by the bathhouse.  The temperature had dropped considerably and no one was lingering that evening. As we passed the gazebo where the Monday evening concerts were held, I saw a few people standing around in it. 

I didn't pay that much notice to them until we drove closer and curiosity caused me to turn my head.  One of the people  was a woman, a woman who was wearing a long dress, a long, white dress.  I sat up in my seat. Oh my goodness, she was wearing a wedding dress.  Her hair was piled on her head and she wore a fingertip veil with a crown of flowers.  A man stood next to her in suit and tie, and with them was a third person - a woman - in what appeared to be robes with a priest stole's around her neck.

"Stop, stop!" I yelled, startling everyone and we turned the car around to  get a better look. We parked as far away as we could so we could watch without being intrusive. Were they taking wedding photos? If so, where was the rest of the wedding party? As we watched, the man ran out to his car, got a small box from the glove compartment,  and then ran back and made adjustments to a camera set up across from them. The minister stood in the center of the gazebo and the man and woman faced her, holding hands.

They're  getting married! I yelled and immediately ducked under the window, afraid my voice had carried on the wind. I  kept looking around for others to join them, but there was no one but the three.  As we watched,  the  minister pulled out a book and began to read from it and as we watched, the man and woman spoke to each other and exchanged rings, then kissed and held each other.

Without any family, with no one other than their priest and our voyeuristic witnessing, they had betrothed their love, getting married at dusk at the edge of the ocean and deserted beach, with the crashing of the surf and the laughing of the gulls as their organ and chorus.  They took a few more pictures, looked at the video to make sure they had been in frame, kissed again, and within minutes, jumped into their car and drove away. The whole affair had been accomplished and over in a matter of minutes.

We sat in the idling car, not speaking, each absorbed in our own reactions to the scene we had come upon. I felt as though we had fallen into a chink of time in the universe and become players in someone else's world. When we had been lost in our own sad thoughts of what was waiting for us at weekend's end and what would unfold  in the months to come, all the while this lovely world had existed and its inhabitants living in a parellel universe of love and beginnings.

The beach contained it all with equanimity: the sorrow at the falling dusk on the last day of official summer; the boarding up of the snack bar and the dragging of the lifeguard chair from the beach onto the parking lot; and even the betrothal of a man and a woman, both out of place in a beach parking lot,  but in place for the most momentous event of their lives.

A gift of love had fallen into our laps and  I was honored to be a de facto witness for their vows.   As they drove away, we rolled the windows down and yelled out good luck, no longer afraid to disturb the sanctity of the scene. It was time to go back to the motel and pack up our soggy swimsuits and sandy shoes and our summer's end. But now we had a little bit of hope to tuck in with our scavenged sea shells before we zipped the suitcase closed.