After I got the news about my dad, I thought about a story my mom had told me when I was a kid. They had just starting going out, this was before his decline, and my dad rescued a little girl from drowning at Point Reyes.
I remember visiting that beach years later. We parked in a small dirt lot and took a trail that wound down the face of a sand-colored cliff. The shoreline was clustered with jagged rock formations being slammed and smothered by waves. Upon the waves' retreat, the rocks would rise from the gray sea like the craggy hands of stone giants.
I felt the cold sand under my feet and had to raise my voice to be heard over the wind and crashing surf. My mom wanted me to keep my hood up, but it kept blowing off, the salty gusts chilling my ears and drying my lips. She said it was too cold to go in the water, but finally agreed to let me roll up my pants and splash around. I waded in only halfway to my knees, yet still felt the muscular hands of the ocean pulling at my calves and trying to suck me under.
I see my dad, Martin we called him, as a young man on the windy beach. He's with a group of young hippies huddled around a driftwood fire. And there is music, always music with Martin. He has his old Yamaha guitar with the cracked head, leading his companions in a Woody Guthrie tune. A scream breaks through the wind. "My girl, my girl! She got pulled in!"
Martin stands, allowing his guitar to fall to the sand. His dark gaze on the girl, he flings his jacket off and runs to the ocean. His knees fly high above the water's surface, his body slashing through waves. Then he dives beneath an angry wall of water. He comes up behind it, his arms propelling him through the churning sea till he reaches the child.
He scoops her up and, keeping her head above the surface, battles the waves toward the shore. He kicks side stroke with his legs, the wee child held against his chest, the two of them disappearing under waves, then popping back up.
He trudges the last twenty yards on foot, the surf slamming into him, the frantic mother at his elbow, the child clinging to his neck. He marches to the fire, places the girl in the mother's arms and covers them in a yellow blanket that I still have.
I asked my mom about this event after the memorial service, if you could call it that.
"Oh, yeah, Martin helped the lifeguard once he got into shallow water."
"Lifeguard?"
"Yeah, the lifeguard was exhausted. He handed the girl to Martin once he could stand and Martin carried her to the mother."
"No, Martin saved her. Remember, that's when he was together. That's what you told me."
She stared at me, expressionless. "I gave them a blanket to use, that cheap yellow one. He was always carrying that junky thing around."
She would make this about a damn blanket. I think she's getting senile. Or his death has just rattled her memory—it doesn't take much.
I see him stroking through the surging sea, the child protected in his bear-like arms. There was no lifeguard there. She's forgetting how he used to be. I don't remember him that way, but she used to tell me. Before he was smelly and bloated from beer and the crap institutional food they used to feed him, before he had to take a half dozen psych meds just to function on the most primitive level, before his visions made him a menace to himself and others, before, when he was a good man and a good father who took care of us.
I remember visiting that beach years later. We parked in a small dirt lot and took a trail that wound down the face of a sand-colored cliff. The shoreline was clustered with jagged rock formations being slammed and smothered by waves. Upon the waves' retreat, the rocks would rise from the gray sea like the craggy hands of stone giants.
I felt the cold sand under my feet and had to raise my voice to be heard over the wind and crashing surf. My mom wanted me to keep my hood up, but it kept blowing off, the salty gusts chilling my ears and drying my lips. She said it was too cold to go in the water, but finally agreed to let me roll up my pants and splash around. I waded in only halfway to my knees, yet still felt the muscular hands of the ocean pulling at my calves and trying to suck me under.
I see my dad, Martin we called him, as a young man on the windy beach. He's with a group of young hippies huddled around a driftwood fire. And there is music, always music with Martin. He has his old Yamaha guitar with the cracked head, leading his companions in a Woody Guthrie tune. A scream breaks through the wind. "My girl, my girl! She got pulled in!"
Martin stands, allowing his guitar to fall to the sand. His dark gaze on the girl, he flings his jacket off and runs to the ocean. His knees fly high above the water's surface, his body slashing through waves. Then he dives beneath an angry wall of water. He comes up behind it, his arms propelling him through the churning sea till he reaches the child.
He scoops her up and, keeping her head above the surface, battles the waves toward the shore. He kicks side stroke with his legs, the wee child held against his chest, the two of them disappearing under waves, then popping back up.
He trudges the last twenty yards on foot, the surf slamming into him, the frantic mother at his elbow, the child clinging to his neck. He marches to the fire, places the girl in the mother's arms and covers them in a yellow blanket that I still have.
I asked my mom about this event after the memorial service, if you could call it that.
"Oh, yeah, Martin helped the lifeguard once he got into shallow water."
"Lifeguard?"
"Yeah, the lifeguard was exhausted. He handed the girl to Martin once he could stand and Martin carried her to the mother."
"No, Martin saved her. Remember, that's when he was together. That's what you told me."
She stared at me, expressionless. "I gave them a blanket to use, that cheap yellow one. He was always carrying that junky thing around."
She would make this about a damn blanket. I think she's getting senile. Or his death has just rattled her memory—it doesn't take much.
I see him stroking through the surging sea, the child protected in his bear-like arms. There was no lifeguard there. She's forgetting how he used to be. I don't remember him that way, but she used to tell me. Before he was smelly and bloated from beer and the crap institutional food they used to feed him, before he had to take a half dozen psych meds just to function on the most primitive level, before his visions made him a menace to himself and others, before, when he was a good man and a good father who took care of us.
