Sandcastles
Page 24
We decorated the table with an elegant white linen cloth, a beautiful fall arrangement of flowers, and china that Pat’s wife had insisted we use, because as she put it, that’s what Pat would’ve wanted.
Just as I opened the oven door to place the dinner rolls in it, Dean reminded me that we still had to get the box of pastry out of my trunk that my mother had packed for us. “I’ll grab it,” he said, dashing off.
A minute later, he entered and placed the huge box on the counter.
I wiped my hands on my apron, and broke into it. “God, I hope she baked a blueberry pie.”
I peeled back the box flaps and saw a bag of Doritos, a two liter bottle of Coke, and three pies.
I lifted up the Doritos and smiled. “Well what do you know?”
I found a note stuffed between the pie boxes. “Your father baked the apple one. Oh, and about the Doritos and Coke, Anna said you’d understand,” my mother wrote.
Dean rested his chin on my shoulder, hugging me from behind. “I fully expect complete details about what that all means at some point this weekend.”
I tapped his arms, which were squeezing me too tight. “Complete details you shall get, my friend. First, let’s eat. I’m starved.”
I headed into the dining room, enjoying the freedom of knowing that life's course was correcting. Yvonne and Aunt Lola began lighting the candles. Willow busied herself, separating Anthony and Charlotte. Little Bugger panted, circling under the table, already looking for scraps. Dean slid out my chair for me. “Ma Lady,” he said, bowing.
I welcomed his chivalrous act with a gracious nod.
I sat before my friends and raised my glass. “To Pat.”
“To Pat,” everyone chimed in.
“To Pat, a man,” Dean continued, “who taught us the finest lesson in life, which is to live, whenever possible, without filter.”
“Here! Here!” We cheered, then we dug into our scrumptious feast.
I took in the smiles and jokes, reflecting on how life came together for us all. I no longer worried about the small things in life I couldn’t control, like how others perceived me.
Life wasn’t perfect, and so we lived it anyway. Rain poured on wedding days, traffic snarled when people were in a rush, satellites broke down during playoff seasons, and people messed up when we needed them not to.
That was life.
It tossed us loopholes, and we had to work to find a better way. Life would continue to throw us challenges, and it wouldn’t be the nature of the challenge that decided our fate, but more so how we interpreted and responded to those challenges that decided it.
All those times we built sandcastles and watched the sea swallow them up, I bowed out, powerless. Now I’ve come to accept that no matter how strong I build a sandcastle, the sea will always rightfully reclaim it.
The tides would continue to roll in and swallow the proverbial sandcastles we painstakingly built in life, be it a marriage, a career, a friendship, or a family, but that offered no reason to stop building them.
We were meant to shape and reshape our lives, and allow the tides of change to roll in and redefine those landscapes. The constant flow protected us from stagnation and the perils of growing too comfortable with the here and now.
The biggest lesson I had learned since meeting everyone at that table, including Pat who hung out with us in spirit, was that the secret to enjoying a beautiful life would never lie in the strength of saving it, but solely in the magic of building it.
The End
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
As with all of my books, I enjoy giving a portion of proceeds back to the community by donating to the NOH8 Campaign www.noh8campaign.com and Hearts United for Animals www.hua.org. Thank you for being a part of this special contribution.
A SPECIAL REQUEST
If you enjoyed reading this story, I’d be so grateful for your favorable review of it. Just a sentence or two saying what you liked about Sandcastles will help others discover it and help me to serve you better with future books!
Also by Suzie Carr:
The Fiche Room
Tangerine Twist
Two Feet off The Ground
Inner Secrets
A New Leash on Life
The Muse
Staying True
Snowflakes
The Journey Somewhere
Keep up on Suzie’s latest news and projects:
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