Remembering

I remember long walks on the beaches of Cape Cod. I remember the landscape stretching out to the arced horizon. I remember the sound of vastness, the capricious weather, the sun as it fell into the sea each night, leaving only the moon and stars to brighten that brave peninsula of land. Standing there on the beach, looking out across the thousands of watery miles toward the distant land masses, I thought about time and decided it was a mystery…one I could not know until I stepped beyond the now and into timelessness.

We were all there—Judy, Korin and Bettina—a chosen family, dreaming dreams money could buy, as well as those it could not. So long ago now, but I have photos that spark memories of that lighter, happier time when the moments we stood within seemed bright with future. Standing at the edge of the world, we felt big in our littleness…big because the sea was big, the beach was big, the sky was big…big because we were part and parcel of it all.

Today, there are just two of us. Korin has married and no longer lives nearby. Bettina has passed to the other side. I ask her, “What is time like now?” There is no reply, only a flutter of feathery heartbeats that I like to think come from her, hovering overhead, whispering: “It’s great…all good…wait and see…you’ll love it!”

And so I wait. Like most persons of age, I have vivid memories of things past and they are often tinged with a warmth I can only call nostalgia. Fifteen years ago when we all stood on this beach and dreamed eastward across the ocean, I had no notion of endings, only possibilities. I miss my little family as it was. I miss everything about it. I am Mamacita, standing still and waiting for what comes next.

I miss Bettina.

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