One of my fondest memories, back in the day, was Sundays. Many of you didn't live in that world as you are too young. Let me paint a picture for you. It was against the law for stores to be open on Sundays. Well, maybe not the law, but the tradition. People just believed that people should go to church, have dinner together, and spend Sundays at home with families. Now this is going to sound like fiction, but business owners even felt very strongly about that too and were not open. Can you imagine that kind of expression of people caring about people? After church and a nice dinner, we would do whatever we wanted! There was nothing we had to do. No shopping or chores. We just had to play, enjoy our day and have fun. I know that sounds crazy or maybe even boring, but it was not.
We, as a family actually knew each other and were aware of what was going on in each other's lives. We actually used Sundays to hang out with Aunts and Uncles and cousins. In those early years, I thought of my cousins as my best friends. It was really quite amazing. When we spent the day at home on Sunday and when it got into the afternoon, often Dad would invite us to all jump in the car and take a ride. Oh man, we were going on an adventure! We had no idea where we might end up, we were just hitting the open road. I guess the cool thing about it was that we were sharing the adventure. We had more opportunities to bond than today's modern families. I think it made us a better family and better people.
Time marches on and now we are lucky to even see each other. I know my kids almost never connect with their cousins and it would be a stretch to say they have a relationship with one another. I would be willing to bet that they have little idea who their cousins really are deep down. The same goes for them as siblings. As they grew older they spent less and less time talking and being invested in one another's lives. Even my two sisters and I spend very little time chatting and being together. I know I don't know my sisters nearly as well as I used to and they really have little understanding of who I have become. Sadly, in many cases, that family bond and secure place has become almost not a part of family culture anymore.
Where does that leave us? Well, it leaves some feeling alone and others feeling neglected or perhaps even unappreciated. With that old family support gone, we have looked to friends and acquaintances. However, their lives are no less busy nor complicated than our families. Many of us dwell in an emptiness and others are so busy they don't realize it. We can be so busy we never have time to realize we are living an unfulfilled life. Sometimes we mistake the busyness for fulfillment, but is it really? All of this is leading me to say how valuable the relationships are that give you the support that is often missing in our culture.
I admit, I sit here many days feeling that same lonliness. It is weird how you can know so many people but not feel any connection. What makes matters worse (as you have heard over and over) I am much farther from my favorite beach in South Carolina than I want to be. So here I sit, landlocked and lonely, how sad is that? Not a pretty picture. I think few people understand my situation because they have been too busy to find a place that lights them up like I have. I also think, too few people know me well enough to understand that I live with such a quandary.
Life goes on. Days pass and there is no sign of change on the horizon. If you have ever seen "Surfer Dude" with Matthew McConaughey, much of the movie portrays a similar situation for him. (By the way there are parts of the movie that need not be in it and are distasteful.) He lives to surf and surfing is his passion, it is what fills him, it is what drives him. There is a time when the sea is flat and there are no waves. This goes on day after day. His insides scream to ride a wave but the sea is just not cooperating. His friends come alongside to try and help, but more or less move on. He wanders alone looking for that place where the waves still roll in.
Sometimes that is what life can feel like. We are alone, waiting for whatever that thing is that makes us feel full to come back. The hard part is that no one gets it and there is not much that can be done about it. (Let me say that I am not living in total misery or depressed or anything like that. I am using this to make a point that I hope I get to soon before you all fall asleep.) But it can and does bring a sort of loneliness.
Last Saturday, I received a fairly large and heavy box. Heavy surprises have just got to be good, don't they? I opened the box and it was full of stuff. I emptied the box and laid out one item after another. The display covered my kitchen counter.
There was a homemade card inside with the sun and a beach on it. I opened the card and I saw a picture of a palm tree and the beach, two of my favorite things, ever. Also inside the card were instructions pertaining to all that was now laid out before me.
The instructions read as follows:
1. Put on shirt. There was a T-shirt with the name of a brewery and the style of one of their brews. As I found out later, it was the brew that had just won the Savannah Beer Festival. I eagerly put it on.
2. Open jar and pour sand in box. There was a wooden box painted in distressed white and blue with an anchor on top. It was kind of music box size. There was a mason jar glass with the Skull Creek Boathouse logo on it and it was filled with sand. The sand was from the beach where the sender worked in my favorite place. I poured the sand into the box. The sand was as soft as I remembered it and it took me back to more peaceful times. I could smell the sea air and hear the seagulls in the distance.
3. Clean jar. I washed the jar and set it aside.
4. Fill clean jar with amber liquid. Luckily, it was afternoon and luckily there happened to be a cold amber liquid in the refrigerator. I filled the jar.
5. Place chair and shells in sand. There was a little package of shells from my favorite place at his beach. There was a tiny beach chair that fit nicely in the box. I carefully placed the chair and shells in such a way as to replicate a nice beach scene.
6.Make finger footprints in the sand. I playfully made finger footprints across the bottom of the sand-filled box to the beach chair.
7. Drink amber liquid. After all that work and excitement I was thirsty and did enjoy some of that amber liquid.
8. Use lucky penny to scratch off South Carolina lottery tickets. Taped to the lid of the box was that lucky penny and I used it to scratch off two lottery tickets.
9. Win Lottery! I eagerly checked the tickets to see what I had won.
10. Come to Hilton Head. Enough said.
That was quite an adventure. I won $25 on the lottery tickets but I was much richer than the value of the tickets might lead one to believe.
I have friends out there who thought enough of me to plan this entire thing out and send it up. The financial investment was sizable but the relational investment was enormous. I have friends out there who know my passion and know my sadness at being so far from it. They know me and they care and spent a lot of time deliberately letting me know they knew and cared. It was amazing and it was something that is a treasure. It is something I will always remember. Hey, (like the M&M guys commercial) I really do exist!
The box currently sits on my kitchen counter and at some point during every day, I make my way to the box and run my fingers through the soft sand of the beach I so frequently visited. I walked that beach at least five days a week and now my fingers can do the same.
They made the most amazing gesture. They lifted my heart and spirits. Without words, they told me how much they knew me, they told me they cared and they told me they were invested in me. That is amazing.
I was moved by the cleverness of what they did but I was more moved by what motivated them to do it. I laughed with joy as I followed the instructions. My eyes teared (just a little, for I am a man) with the joy that my friends had filled my heart with.
Are we invested in the life of others? Do we really know those we call friends? Do they know how we feel? What a great example we have to learn from. What a great story I have to tell, not to mention a box of sand from my special place to run my fingers through every day.
Take time to let them know you care. Let them feel the love you have for them. Don't love the mall or laundry more than people. We all need it and so do they. Invest in one another for the dividends are great.
Some of us may not be that clever. Some of us might not be able to make that investment. So, here is a thought. Some Sunday, call that particular person and invite them to go for a car ride. Take a short journey together with no particular destination. Just enjoy the ride.
Mike and Marie, you have touched me deeply. You have made a difference in the life of a sea lover that is landlocked. I will treasure that box and even more your gesture. I love you guys and I am thankful.
Sorry, but now I have got to go play in the sand!