Lost In Surf

For a number of years we got in the habit of going to the beach for our summer vacation. We’d been to Topsail Island, NC a couple of times with our running friends, and we decided to continue to go on our own. Well, not quite. On our own meant asking grandmas, Uncle Bill, and Uncle Carl to go along with the four of us. It was nice to have family along to help handle the kids; otherwise it would be no vacation at all.

Topsail Island has the greatest beach in the world, and thankfully, nobody seems to know it. Collectively, we’ve been to beaches in Florida, Georgia, New Jersey, Hawaii, and France. None of them are as good as Topsail. It is an uncrowded family beach. We always rented (still do from time to time) a house right on the beach. They were the greatest family vacations of all-time.

One year we were at the beach when John was 2 or 3 years old. I could claim that I nobly wanted Jean to enjoy a break, but I suspect that “kid duty” was thrust upon me by “she who must be obeyed”. I figured I could take John down to the beach to play in the shallow water which would take minimal effort on my part. Jean wasn’t too keen on the idea as John couldn’t swim and might wander out into the ocean. I made a great and solemn vow to stay between John and deep water and herd him into the shallows as necessary. Jean reluctantly yielded.

John wasn’t content with the shallows for long. He quickly created a game where he would attempt to dodge and dash past me into the deeper water where the waves still had some size. I tried to herd him like a sheep dog, but was repeatedly forced to catch him with my hands and take him back to shallow water. I backed up into the water as far as I dared. The deeper water slowed him down significantly and made him easier to catch. It was easy to forget my promise to Jean.

It was really just a matter of time. Every so often there is a wave that is significantly bigger than the others. Since I was facing the shore to keep an eye on John, I had no idea of the size of the next wave. One of these bigger waves plowed past me, knocked John down, and swallowed him up. As the wave washed up on shore and returned to the ocean, John was nowhere to be seen!

Quite frankly, my first thought was “Jean is going to kill me if I don’t find John!”, but where to look? I looked all around me and realized how impossible it is to find a small child in the frothy surf. It’s a big ocean and the surf was going every which way. If I moved from where I was, I would lose all perspective of where I was and where I had lost him. So I stood in the same spot and tried to look everywhere at once for anything that might resemble a body part of a small child.

Several more waves passed by with no sight of John anywhere. I was about to start yelling for help when John stood up about five feet past me in the deep water. He wasn’t the least bit frightened or concerned. Only his head cleared the surface in the trough between two waves. I lunged and got a hold on him just before the next wave could swallow him yet again.

We went back to the house to shower, change clothes, and spend some time inside. I needed a few hours of reflection before I took John back in the ocean. I like to think I was more careful the next time. I like to think that, but I am not entirely sure it is true.

It was several years before I told Jean about this incident. “Don’t tell Mom”, became a catch-phrase with the kids in later years as we ventured into deeper water and bigger waves.

As Ann recently reminded me, the truth is I didn’t lose just John, I also lost Ann; and it didn’t happen just once. Don’t tell Mom. Please?