It’s my job to come over every day to check on Gran,
and today I can tell as soon as I park the car that the
house is empty, and she probably went there again.
Always to the ocean.
When I came through the driveway door, I could see
a cup of tea on the kitchen table, still a little warm,
with a slice of buttered toast on the small faded blue
flowered plate that is her favorite.
She always tells me that she has go to the water and
bring them back home.
Granddad, his older brother Warren, and their best
friend from the neighborhood, James.
Her grief over losing them has been deeply embedded
for years, intensifying around this time when it’s not warm
or cold, lasting maybe a month, then it settles down over
the winter.
Thank goodness for that, if she went to the beach
during the winter she would die.
She called them the three musketeers, Granddad
the ring leader, Warren and James following along
for adventure.
So, they enlisted together in the Royal Marines,
to be the best of the best, and to kick Adolph’s ass.
They went through training and were all assigned to
an amphibious assault battalion they called the
“Beach Busting Bastards”, looking quite gallant
in their uniforms and berets.
Then one dark morning the infantry landing craft,
with about 200 gallant fighting men aboard,
motored in close to a beach.
We were never told exactly where.
The man at the tiller shifted gear to reverse, at the
same time unlatching the thick armored bow ramp
from its moorings and accelerated hard. This sent
the ramp crashing into the sea, making a path for
the men to charge down and into the water with
rifles held high over their heads in both hands.
All that and they never made it to the sand.
Like many landings, most men were cannon
fodder. You send a thousand men to the beach
hoping a hundred make it to get the job done.
Gran learned that she was pregnant with Dad
just the day before the government men showed
up on the porch, unannounced, in full uniform.
They really didn’t have to say anything.
Gran changed that day, became distant, disconnected.
Her eyes are the clearest blue, but they never seem
to be in the present, always preoccupied and looking
for something that can’t ever be found.
Now I find here here, water lapping at her feet,
the hem of her house dress wet, looking out to sea,
leaning on her cane as it sinks into the sand.
The statues in the shallows call to her, they have
become the musketeers that need her to guide
them to the shore and to safety.
I approach and put my arm around her. She doesn’t
react, by now knowing my touch.
“Come on then Gran, we can help the boys tomorrow.”
Without a word she carefully turns, and we slowly walk
back to the house and her now cold breakfast.
I put the kettle on and look out the kitchen window
at the freshening tide, at the same time hearing the
squawking of gulls and the ticking of the water as
it comes up to a boil.
She sits very still, her hands clasped in her lap and
following my gaze out the window, out to sea, thick
steam rising off the fresh cup of tea.
I just noticed that her small blue flowered plate is
the same color blue as her eyes.
