Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: SEA CHANGE or TREE CHANGE (07/13/17)
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TITLE: Blueberry Ocean Breeze | Previous Challenge Entry
By Brenda Kern
07/20/17 -
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“You’ll love it, Carly,” he’d said, over and over. “You really will--the freshness of the breeze, the gentle lapping of the waves. It’ll get into your blood and you’ll never want to leave. I’ve always wanted to move back, and now we have a chance. Just think about it.”
Carly, the woman who had never lived within a day’s drive of any body of water, wasn’t so sure. They had a fine city life—-good jobs, a cozy apartment, and long-time friends nearby. It was all just what she wanted and he had seemed contented, but then this ‘opportunity’ came.
They could move back to the beach town of his youth and live in a fixer-upper at the top of the dunes. He’d work as a handyman and labor on their house in his spare time. He wanted to buy a small boat and teach her to sail. He could fulfill a ‘lifetime dream,’ he said.
She had to admit that they’d lived the entire 35 years of their marriage in her comfort zone, Charlie and Carly of Apartment 3B. And he seemed so earnest that she’d love it, and it was crystal-clear that he wanted to make the move… so they’d moved.
Thus began the flurry of activity surrounding the move and setting up his business. An open house, attended by all his local family members and childhood friends, completed their launch into the new life.
He got up early the next day to begin cleaning up, letting her sleep in a while. She awoke to a thudding crash and found Charlie on the kitchen floor. The emergency room doctors said he’d had a heart defect that hadn’t shown itself until now, and that he had probably been dead before he hit the floor.
And Carly’s world hit rock bottom, too.
Yes, Charlie, now I’m here alone. I barely know your family and friends. I’m so adrift without you in my world, and really, this place isn’t my world at all. Now what?
After the inevitable funeral and burial and death-related business, she fell into a blurry washout of an existence. Things fell into two categories: ‘only as much as is necessary’ and ‘not now.’
She moved through the stages of grief and a parallel set of stages in her relationship with God. Anger, grief, numbness, and a kind of bitter acceptance of ‘how He’d failed her’ dominated her faith.
One morning, she caught a wave of energy and surprised herself by showering and getting dressed. She stepped out and headed down the narrow winding path that led to the sea. She and Charlie had made it a point to walk on the beach every day during the weeks after the move, and she’d dreaded making that walk alone for the first time, but that day the things Charlie loved called to her.
Tears threatened, and she sat on a rock while they overtook her. She couldn’t pray, but her flooded heart cried out to God. “I am so alone. I don’t know how to continue. I don’t know what to do. Should I move back? Try to get the old job back? Should I stay here? What work could I get here?”
And her darkest unspoken question weighed on her like an anchor. “Should I join Charlie in death? Would that best?”
She got back on her feet and walked, lost in thought and lost in life.
Her stomach growling propelled her homeward, and after lunch she sat and stared at nothing. She felt scoured out, empty.
The jangling ring of the phone startled her. The Caller ID screen showed that it was Charlie’s sister. She knew she had to answer it, or Betsy would just call many times more or come over. Betsy said she had a blueberry cobbler warm from the oven, made from blueberries she’d harvested from her own backyard brambles. Their family had always called it “Blueberry Ocean Breeze.” Could she come over and share?
Carly surprised herself for the second time that day by indicating that Betsy should come on over. As she set out small plates and forks, put the hot tea on, and checked to see if she had any vanilla ice cream, Carly realized that she felt a small stirring of hope, a positive feeling about the immediate future.
No small feat! Maybe Blueberry Ocean Breeze could be the start, the tiniest ripple in the waters that she’d been looking for.
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