1000 Word Meme - Prompt #12 - The Visiting Place

The Visiting Place

Tia Majors had always loved the ocean. She'd felt that from the moment she was born, the ocean tides of the Pacific Northwest continually called to her. Whispered her name when the winds whipped through the sand dunes and tall sea grasses. Calling her to one specific place.

The cold forbidding waters of the North Pacific do not allow for sun bathing, wading and swimming without protection from the cold winds and the deceitfully colder waters. High cliffs or rock walls kept most of the beautiful beaches out of reach of the tourist. The young locals often scaled down the rocky cliffs to get to get to the best places. The rich, however, just bought the shoreline, rocks and all. Leaving very few places accessible to the average beachgoer.

The spring when Tia was just four years old her family moved closer to the beach and built a seaworthy access walk from their property to the beach, making it easier for her mother, June, who had multiple sclerosis, MS, to get down to the beach. Tia didn't understand the word MS or the disease. All she knew was that her mother walked funny with two sticks attached to her elbows and tired easily.

So everyday throughout all but the rainiest of days of that spring and summer, Tia and her mother would dress for the weather and wobble to the end of the sand-covered walkway, Tia dragging a little red, Radio-Flyer wagon, full of their afternoon fun. They carried the quilt that Tia's grandmother had made for her mother, June, when she was just sixteen. Once a beautiful quilt, now faded and worn in spots, the quilt became their favorite beach blanket for them to sit on or to wrap up in. Tia loved its colors: full of yellow sunshine flowers on watery blue prints. The little wagon also held their lunch, drinks, and sometimes extra wraps, just in case the weather changed while they were out.

Tia and her mother spent many hours on their beach outings each day, collecting shells, crab skeletons or just their claws; sometimes sand dollars, drift wood and strange rocks worn down by the sea, and always agates. The red ones were her mother's favorite kind and Tia took great pride in finding the red ones for her. When it was close to suppertime, Tia would help her mother pack up the wagon with their new treasures, and they'd trudge back up the walkway to the house and a nap before supper. Tia could never remember a time when her mother didn't always have to take a nap before they ate supper.

When Tia's family had moved to the big house on the beach it had been necessary to hire a fulltime housekeeper, a caregiver, and a very good cook. All three of these women were bundled up into one, Mrs. Ivy Irving. Not a jollier, more tenderhearted person had ever been known. But Tia could never get her name right and from the age of four she'd always called her mother's helper and friend, Mrs. Eye-eye. Or more specifically, just Eye-eye.

Over the summer her mother's health deteriorated, but Mrs. Eye-eye was always there. Bathing her, dressing her, feeding her. Tia's love grew most tender for her Eye-eye as she watched how lovingly and carefully she tended to her mother. On days when her mother was especially worn-out and couldn't walk to the end of the beach walk, Eye-eye would be the one to fill Tia's little wagon with all their special needs for the day, put her mother in her wheelchair and then they'd all three go beachcombing together. On those days, June was only able to sit at the end of the walk, with her bare feet buried deep in the sand, and watch her little treasure, Tia, and her Eye-eye, run and play games on the beach. On really warm days Tia was even allowed to chase the waves and get a little more than her feet wet.

Eye-eye was there the day her mother had to go to the hospital. Her mother's health had gotten so bad that she needed the special attention that only doctors and nurses could give. Eye-eye had been instructed to take care of little Tia and take her to the beach every day. It was the very first time since Tia could remember that her mother wasn't sitting on the end of the wooden steps waving to her and pointing out good places to look for red agates. It's a good thing Mrs. Eye-eye loved the beach as much as the rest of them or Tia might not have gotten to continue her mother's tradition.

By the end of summer, just before Tia was to start school, June passed away. For a solid month, June had to stay in bed in a building not close to the waves. A faraway place where Tia went only on weekends with her father. It was on those weekends where she told her mother of all the seafaring stories and treasure hunts that she and Mrs. Eye-eye had done during that week. And of course she always brought the best agate of the week to add to the collection of agates lined up on the windowsill of the hospital room. The last weekend that Tia got to sit upon the white bed, got to lean in upon her mother's breast and listen to her labored breathing, June had whispered to her baby girl that everything would be alright. Mrs. Eye-eye would stay on and take care of her and her father for as long as they needed her. "And," she motioned her daughter closer to her cheek, "I'll be visiting you when you go to the beach. I'll be there at the end of the walkway with my feet buried in the warm sand watching you play. Don't forget to come and give me a kiss and show me your treasures." June's smile was weak, but she continued to say, "Watch for me, I'll be there."

The day June was put into the ground, the heavens opened up and poured down a cold, cold rain. The wind stirred the waves into a frenzy, and sculpted the wet sands on the beach into little soldiers all lined up, facing south. A phenomenon Tia and her mother had seen only once before on a very stormy day. Tia and Eye-eye went to the beach at the end of that day and sat and cried until there were no more tears in them. When it was time to go home, to eat supper, and get ready for bed and school the next day, Tia turned at the top of the walkway and looked back at the sea. For an instant, the winds had softened, the grasses stilled, and the waves quietly lapped the shore. The dark foreboding skies had broken open and sent a shaft of light to the end of the beach walk. Tia blew a kiss and waved to her mom, standing there without her wheelchair, standing without her walking sticks, standing and smiling in a way Tia had never seen her mother smile before. A bright, beautiful, soft smile. June caught the kiss in midair and pressed it to her lips, waved to Tia and said, "Don't forget our visiting place, my darling," then she vanished into thin air.

Now that Tia was twenty and looking back on that day, she knew for sure that if Mrs. Eye-eye had seen her mom and heard her calling the way she had, she'd have freaked out and taken off to parts unknown. But no one saw her mom at the end of the beach walk except Tia.

Tia's special day had finally come. And even though she'd never missed a weekend at her "visiting place" with her mom, today was the day before her wedding and standing in the golden light at the end of the beach walk, her soft brown hair blowing in the wind, June stood waiting, arms extended, for her daughter's embrace. They sat on the end of the steps and talked until sunset. "I'm moving away tomorrow," Tia tearfully told her mom.

"I know, darling." June cooed close to her ear as she pulled strands of her long brown hair away from her face and tucked them behind her ear, "I know. But I'll still be in your heart no matter where you are. I will always be watching over you. And, when things get so bad that you need a hug, I'll be here, waiting for you at our visiting place, waiting with outstretched arms and warm kisses."

by DBB