Seashore Seasons of Life

The choices we make influence so much of our lives, choices like the places we choose to be and live. Living by the sea on an island was one of those choices that created so much of that influence for me. When I look back on my life, I can't help but compare it to the seasons of the seashore.


In the spring of my life, the seashore served as a backdrop for my yearnings, especially my dreams of romantic love. In that time, there were so many false starts - kisses without substance on a moonlit beach - made all the more lonely because the nights were so beautiful. Then the promises of the sea became mine. I met my soul mate and the promises whispered by the waves became a reality.

That was the spring of my life.


Summer came with a bright and blazing intensity - my childbearing years. Days replaced starlit nights in importance. And sunny days were filled with sand buckets, snacks, and suntan lotion to protect tender skin. Vigilance was the keyword during the summer season of my life as I watched the little ones skitter on the beach, much like little sandpipers. Later, bobbing in the surf. Then later, I played the watchful waiting game while they visited places with names like the Tide, the Ketch, the Shell - places with sea-like names, but completely alien from my beloved sea.

That was the summer of my life.


Now I'm in the autumn of my ocean watching. This season is calm, still warm kissed by the remembered intensity of the summer sun. Relaxed now, I watch my grands hurl themselves toward the incoming tide, calm because I know the children of my summer are in their summers - secure in their own lives and loves. I am tranquil and filled with peace in the fall season as I clasp the hand of my spring season lover, my companion in three seashore seasons.



I find I want to hold this season more than I have ever wanted to hold any other season in my life. This September song grows more poignant, more precious than any other, for the sun-warmed sea still holds a strong whisper of summer, and the remembrance of the everlasting promise of spring.

This is the autumn of my life.



I do not know what lies ahead of me as I push away the thought of the approaching winter of my life. I do know God has been good to me through these three seasons. Perhaps the best has been saved for last. I will find out if I get to spend my winter by the sea. In any case, I realize life has its cycle, and whatever comes, life will continue, and future generations will carry at least a small piece of me through their seashore seasons.