My grandmother is the one who told me that salt water cures everything. This week at the beach, our first as a family, will be divided into the time before and after her funeral.

I spent the summers of my childhood on this shoreline, and after growing up over a half-decade in New York City that spanned my late twenties and early thirties, I was married here. I have spent my life waiting and hoping for this trip: The Husband and The Kid and I gazing out at the Gulf that rocked and cradled me, that stung me and knocked me down, that lapped at my feet and chased me back to shore. Though the city is more of a reflection of my inner life–the buzzing and frenetic activity, the constant on-ness of a never-quiet Type A mind and its internal narration–the beach is a reflection of the life I want, the life that my faith promises is possible: the reliability of waves that sometimes roll, sometimes crash, but always show up, their rhythm ceaseless and steady.

The last of my grandparents is gone as my young family is beginning. The end of my grandmother’s life was marked by vanishing memory, physical pain, and a slow disappearance of the woman we knew. Salt water doesn’t cure everything.

Tomorrow, The Sis and I will drive three hours to our hometown for a graveside service, then we will drive three hours back to our families–our home. We’ll head back to the shoreline that TK is beginning to love–his fingers busily scraping sand, his toes dipping into salt water, his laughter accompanying the churning waves. My inner control freak has brought my city-mindedness to the shore: sunscreen-applying, hat placing, shadow-casting. I am a buzz of activity, propelled by worries of skin cancer and drowning, and fear is something that can be passed down a family line–but I want to face it now. Misunderstanding and conflict can characterize a family and divide it, and it’s easy to forget who taught you to ride waves when your inner critic is the loudest voice, when that fear takes the wheel, when all you can think about is what you want to avoid for your child. There are no perfect families, only those that pretend to be. Each family is broken in its own way, and there are varying levels of admission of that fact. Every person is broken in his own way, and many of those people are parents.

My family of three walks along the beach and I think about the last beach trip with my grandmother, another trio on the shore consisting of her, The Mom and me. I was more someone’s child then, and now I’m more someone’s mother. I’ll teach my son to ride waves, and I’ll teach him that sunscreen is non-negotiable. I’ll teach him that there are worse things than being imperfect–surely there will be opportunities to lead by example on that. I’ll teach him that families have ups and downs and sometimes it’s more important to say what needs to be said than to pretend everything is okay. Hopefully we will end most days with laughter and most summers with salt water. Maybe I’ll end up on the right side between casting a shadow and providing shade. 

Later in the day, TK plays with TH on the sand and I watch from the water. The Niece races toward me, squealing in glee. “Want to learn how to ride the waves?” I ask her, and show her how to bury your head right into the crest. She laughs but prefers to let her dad lift her above the breakers–that’s how she’ll ride for now. There will be plenty of time to plant her feet in the ground and feel the swells rush over her. I turn toward the water’s spray, everyone I love within feet of me, and think about the waves that brought me here, to this shore–waves of people on city streets and water in salty oceans in which I have existed. And though there have been times when the rush of sea and shadows of clouds and brightness of sunshine have felt like enemies, I know that they are where life is–that because of grace, every moment and imperfection and crash can lead me home rather than do me in. That, like TK and The Niece, I am always someone’s child, and there has never been a time when I was not held, when I was not headed home.