It started with my grandmother, Pearl – the child of a peripatetic father who dragged his family from coast to coast in search of both jobs and the next perfect location. (shown here ca 1920)
A belief in a ‘geographic cure’ apparently runs deep in our genes!
My grandmother loved the ocean and while she professed a fondness for the Pacific and “would tolerate the Gulf, if forced”, it was the Atlantic Ocean that captured her heart.
When she and my grandfather married in 1922, they honeymooned on a small island off the coast of New Jersey and the rest, as they say, is history.
They both worked hard, lived in small rental apartments, saved every dime and, in 1924, the year before my mother (their only child) was born, they bought a house in Beach Haven, New Jersey, on Long Beach Island (LBI).
By choice, the house was 'right smack dab' in the middle of the island - two blocks from the bay and two blocks from the ocean.
My prudent grandparents weren't taking any chances with hurricanes and flooding.
I can still hear them recount times during storms when the bay and the Atlantic met right in front of the house, inflicting damage, but being spared the full brunt of the weather.
(Shown here is aftermath from 'the hurricane of '44 which destroyed the towns boardwalk)
Memories of summers in the sun, windswept dunes in fall and the moodiness of foggy spring walks at the oceans edge are encrypted in my bones – all thanks to them.
Looking at pictures spanning decades this weekend made me appreciate what a rich legacy I was given.
I can’t imagine what my life would have been without this island as backdrop.
It served as safety net, refuge, solace and the one constant in times of change and turbulence – in other words, HOME.
So much has changed – yet I know, with certainty, that the ocean will be there when I return later this month.
Tides going in and out; waves pounding the shore in a rhythm I’ve always likened to the earths heart beat.
It’s the final resting place of my great grandmother, my grandparents and my father.
It will be a final tribute to my mother to return her to our roots - back to the source – and reunite her with the people she loved the most.
Bittersweet but fitting.
It’s time.
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