Musings on Vacation
By Joe Rector
The past week, Amy and I returned to our favorite vacation spot, Isle of Palms, South Carolina. We’ve traveled over the mountains to reach this spot for several years and have found the best time to visit is the week after Labor Day. By then, all the children have returned to school, and college students are on campus. That leaves the beach to us old fogies.
I’m not sure how we started taking our vacation here, but along the way, we’ve stayed in several places. In fact, we celebrated our wedding anniversary at Isle of Palms. Yes, it was cold; the sun shone, but the wind coming off the water could slice a person into two pieces. We spent our week inside and read our books. Occasionally, we’d take a gander at the ocean, and that was enough to satisfy us.
I’ve always had a rule that if we travel to the beach for a vacation, then we will be able to see the ocean outside the rental unit windows. My feeling is that if I can’t see the water, there’s no reason to make the trip. One year, however, we broke that rule. So that our dog Sadie could go with us, we rented a condo a block from the beach. To say the place was bare bones is to understate the situation. Behind the building was the parking lot, a convenience store, and the only thing separating properties was a line of trees and overgrown weeds.
Some of our trips have ended poorly or not come about at all. We rented a small house one year. It, too, was a couple of blocks from the beach. The place was run down, and the screened porch where I spent much of my time was moldy and apparently salvaged after some storm had ravaged it. On that trip, we left mid-week because the place was too disgusting.
On another trip, things went fine for a few days. We discovered a ferry that hauled folks from Mt. Pleasant to Charleston and back. The day was fun as we walked through the old market and took some side streets to find hidden historical treasures. That night, Amy awoke sick to her stomach and began “losing her lunch.” The pain became too intense to attribute it to food poisoning. A trip to the emergency room revealed that my dear wife was suffering from appendicitis. However, because she was taking a blood thinner, the doctor wouldn’t operate on her for several days. Instead, he loaded Amy up with antibiotics and pain medication. Our rental time came to an end, and I had nowhere to go. We called our doctor in Knoxville, and she made arrangements for a surgeon to meet us. We hopped into the car and drove like maniacs down I-26 and I-40. At 11:30 p.m., we arrived at the hospital, and the Knoxville surgeon told us he could manage any bleeding that might occur, but not the effects of a burst appendix. He performed surgery early the next morning.
Last year, our plans were canceled because our son Dallas was in the midst of a serious health issue. Neither of us felt comfortable leaving him alone in such bad shape. The beach wasn’t close to importance to Dallas. We lost him a few weeks later.
This vacation we are on has been made possible by the kindness of a former student. That’s all I can say; I’ve been sworn to secrecy. His offer brought me to tears for the loss of Dallas and the acts of this former student.
I sat and looked at the ocean today, and I thought about those two young men. One is gone from me. I have no doubt where he is and how safe and happy he is. The other is the biggest-hearted, kindest person I have ever known. He is an example of what God wants all of us to be, and I don’t say that just because he made this trip possible. I am forever indebted to him and hope that one day I can, in some way, repay his generosity.
The tide is much like our lives. We start from the day we are born, and with every passing moment, we cover a bit a ground. Little by little, we inch forward until we reach a final resting place on the shore. When those life waters ebb, they take us with them, and we return no more. It’s my hope that I can be as good as my son and my student have been. I’ll work on being that kind a person when I finish another vacation at Isle of Palms.
