On a Street at Sunset Beach

I don’t remember my first trip to our family beach house. The guest book on our coffee table, with entries that date back to the '80s, indicates that I was an infant, visiting with my mom, dad and grandmother. Beach house visits became a regularity, especially during my toddler years. It was an easy way for my parents to keep their only child entertained – all they had to do was smear sunscreen on my face and slap a bucket hat on my head and I would play in the sand for hours.

As years passed and my parents divorced, that house became a special bonding place for me and my dad. We went weekend after weekend, summer after summer and were regulars at Dockside Seafood Restaurant in Calabash. It was where he taught me how to fly a kite, play nearly every card game known to man and, later, how to drive a car (I should note here that learning stick shift didn’t work out, sorry dad). When I became interested in volleyball, he played with me for hours without complaint. Both of us got ridiculous shoulder sunburns and broke numerous toes on the hard sand over the years, but we were a pretty good doubles pair when a challenger came along.

My dad always held a “the more, the merrier” mentality when it came to our beach house. We didn’t document every visit, but the guest book indicates that dozens of family friends and my gal pals throughout adolescence made trips down to our beach house, sometimes staying for multiple weeks at a time. Friends came and went like the tides, but the importance of that house and the memories my dad and I shared there never faded.

In the fall of 2014, during a brief period of remission from follicular lymphoma, my dad packed up his car and drove to Sunset Beach. He stayed at our house for about two months, spending every day walking on the beach and reflecting upon his life. He told me these were some of the most peaceful days he had ever experienced. I wish I could have joined him on one of those weekends, but with my busy class schedule, adjusting to being a college student (I was a first-year at the time) and my lack of a car, it was not feasible.

I returned with him to our beach house two years later when, on a cold, overcast morning, my grandmother and I scattered his ashes in the ocean.

Tomorrow I will return to my beach house alongside 13 of my friends (you read that right…14 women in one house). Every time I go, I am flooded with gratitude for the place that brought so much comfort to my dad during hard times, so much joy to the family and countless friends that have visited throughout the years and so many memories that I will cling to forever.