A Meaningful Stroll

We began walking. Starting at the pier on Isle of Palms and heading down the beach toward the lighthouse. We were all dressed in our civilian clothing. In a way taunting the rain to pour down. It was not a day to sport bathing suits and surprisingly, although it was our last day to catch the sun's rays, I was not disappointed. More content to walk with my siblings on this overcast day with its eerie calm. Quiet, stilled, and taking in the big picture. A picture as large as the sea. Observing each brother, my sister, in their elements. Picking them apart.

I walked beside Charlie at first. His head somehow even with mine. It had snuck up on me how much he had grown. How much he had changed. His hands turning from a boys into a mans. His face and shoulder's broadening, leaving behind some piece of his boyish charm he held only a second ago it seemed. I was suddenly jolted back as I realized how much he had changed, and as if I had just woken from a dream. I looked around at all my siblings taking in their faces, their features, their differences. I felt a dreadful panic as I realized that I had not seen them in nearly a year. So preoccupied with my own issues, my own trials that I had not even begun to think of how much they had been forced to unwillingly and possibly unknowingly grow. Something so simple as Charlie's eye's being level with mine brought me to a tearful recognition that I had forgotten to take notice of each of them and that was all they had done this past year, was take notice of me.

My eyes scanned to Faith. So beautiful and charming with her large eyes and burly eyebrows yet to be trimmed back, a refreshing reminder that she was still my little sister. Not quite past her awkwardness that had lingered so long when I was her age. Her face however was refined, gorgeous really. Her short whisps of dark hair whipping in the salty air. She was beautiful but distant to me. I'm not sure where the distance stems from and as I walked on the beach, a mere ten feet away from her, I began to ponder what it was that made her seem miles away from me. Was it her age? No I did not think that. Was it her personality? Certainly not. We were one and the same. I could not pin point it at first, and even now I am uncertain of what it is that has us seemingly light years apart. It's certainly not a lack of love, but what I am beginning to believe, is it may be my inability to show her my love. That thought alone had my eyes swelling with tears, the same way my eyes welled up when Charlie's eyes had unexpectedly met mine. Something so simple, that instilled such a shock of pain to my heart. I feel that my ability to show her love will come but there is something that lies in Faith's eyes that frightens me. Maybe it is the look that suggests in a small way that she too is scared of me. There is a lingering uncertainty between the two of us. And every time we talk, there is a certain dance we do about our words. A bit of a fox trot chase. A give and a take. And I suppose the balance will come, but sometimes the chase is painful. Both of us seeking to find a balance in our mutual vulnerability. Her with so much to learn from me, through my mistakes. And yet, my pride, standing in the way of teaching her. Of admitting to one last person that I have failed time and time again. Even if that person is my sister, a person I should be bound tightly with, confiding every fear and ounce of wisdom I have to bestow upon her. I fear telling her the things I know she must eventually hear from me. They seem too real for her to handle in her beautiful, youthful, fearless purity that I envy so much. So very much. As I looked across her at the beach, her fingers lacing the breeze that glanced across her tiny body, I felt overwhelmed and taken aback with her beauty, her innocence, her growth, her compassion, and yet for some reason terrified by it.

JohnMark walked beside me. He was my little buddy. We surveyed the houses on the beach front deciding which one's were our top favorites. It was a little habit of ours. A pastime both of us thoroughly enjoyed. Sometimes we would go for drives, through the ritzy neighborhoods on the mountain and select our favorite homes, rating them on a scale of one to ten, as we did now. We were a lot like an old couple the way we interacted. Old souls, him and I. Enjoying the same things, loving the quiet, content to walk and talk periodically. We both loved the rain and as the sky grew dimmer, we both quieted, in ready anticipation of the sky's opening up and drenching us from head to toe. As we walked, JohnMark would pause to pick up a sea shell here and there. Or stop to take in a dead jelly fish, from a very safe distance, that had been washed a shore. And then swiftly he would turn, his dirty blond hair being swept to one side of his head, and return to commenting on the houses perched above us, past the dunes. He was exquisitely beautiful. He always had been to me. His eyes tender, his hair straight and thick, his little body, muscular under his Wizard of Oz t-shirt. He was my guy. My companion. My friend. As we continued along our walk we talked about the rain that was sure to come, with a slight smile. The sand dollar pieces that we had gathered, that he was certain were the same one, just broken apart and strewn across the beach, longing to be placed back together. A duty he was honored to fulfill. He was beautiful, inside and out. That was something, amidst everything, I had never lost sight of. He let out his trademark giggle, as he listened to the low toned whistle that came from the wind sliding over the opening of his improvised shell carrier, a Starbucks cup. He was still a boy. A beautiful, delicate, young boy still charmed by the very small things in life. The details that so often, I glanced over without thought or care. Moving about life as if it was something to bare rather than to be enjoyed and filled with. JohnMark was the one I would come rushing to when my heart felt as though it was becoming hardened to the small and yes seemingly trivial beauties of the world. His bright eyes always revealed them to me, when I most needed to see them. I am certain, when the Lord said we are to be as children, he was referring directly to JohnMark and his contagious spirit. And as JohnMark continued to talk, spilling over with a giddy joy about the simplest of things, my mind began to wander. I could still hear his precious voice, becoming a low murmur in the whipping wind and now drizzling rain, and as he spoke I tried to take every detail in that surrounded me. The compact sand, that lay underneath my feet. The strong wind, sprinkled with pelting rain, that came across my face with force.The sea beginning to rise and fall almost in sync with the rise and fall of my chest. The boy who stood next to me, tiny in comparison to the world around us. The world that enveloped us. Hugging us tightly with its windy elements. I felt the Lord's strength, his power, as it rained from the sky, as the sand stirred on account of the wind, that came directly from his hand. How he was in control of our lives. Of where our footprints would be left. He knows our path. He knows the storms we must walk through. He is aware of what he gives us, both trial and beauty. It is overwhelming at times because his plan is as vast and as unknown as the sea. Reaching far out, past our sight, unknown, and yet to be discovered. And yet, we know it is there. Although I have not braved the entire sea, I know it is there- by faith.

There is so much yet to come. More changes in life will erupt. Charlie will grow much taller then me. His arms will soon be able to encompass my small frame. Faith, her distance will lessen, although I pray she will not come to understand all the things that I do. That she will always have that enviable distance that makes her so pure and beautiful and innocent and untouchable, except maybe one day to a more than worthy man. And JohnMark, my buddy, he will change, he will lose a bit of his boyish charm, but I feel assured he will always, even into our old age, possess a spirit that recognizes the beauty of this earth we live on. That is not afraid to remark on the beautiful colors that sprinkles across the mural of houses aligned on the beach front, or the muddy waters that hold the fragments of a sand dollar, or the low hum of the wind whistling across his cup. He will always possess that simple understanding of the small things the Lord has given us to enjoy. And I have a feeling, I will always come running to him, to redirect my attention, with a simple walk on the beach, to the things the Lord has so kindly blessed me with.