Happy Hour

Written by RJ on October 26, 2013. Posted in Coleen, Healing

My happy hours here are not extravagant. They consist of a couple Heineken’s iced in a $8.oo cooler I bought at the local CVS and a roasted almond tin I fill with whatever snacks I have laying around the condo. I also make sure to bring the Stephen King novel I am reading, some antacids, my iPhone, room key, and a small notebook and pen in case I get the urge to write something down. At that point, I feel pretty complete.

I like to think that Coleen and I invented happy hours at the beach. We probably didn’t but I remember starting our tradition on a vacation we took years ago, 15 or 20 years at least. We were on a little island called Ocracoke, which sits at the southernmost tip of North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Our routine while there was to visit the beach in the late morning before the sun got too hot and too aggressive and then return to our rented house for lunch. We would hang around in the afternoon, reading or seeing some sights, riding bikes or maybe just napping.

As it got closer to 5:00, we would pack up some beer or wine or both, some snacks, the kids, and head back to the beach for happy hour. The kids would get back in the water with their boogie boards and Coleen and I would be that couple you see on the beach with a glass of wine, looking in each other’s eyes, talking, laughing, making plans. Never thinking this far ahead when one of us would be missing and the other one would be having happy hour alone on a different beach. Never thinking of that.

This beach in Ft Lauderdale reminds me of Ocracoke today. It’s windy and the surf is up. Nice waves. We always liked big waves. I can almost see the kids on those boogie boards. And Coleen wrapping up and being worried about getting too much sun because that wasn’t good for her. And the wind in her hair. And the life in her eyes.

Tonight when I leave this beach, I won’t be going back to our rented house with her. And I won’t be opening a bottle of wine and chopping vegetables or garlic or onions while she cooks dinner. Shrimp scampi, maybe? And I won’t be laying with her in bed either.

I’m starting to think this is why Coleen wanted me to come to the ocean. Not so I could have happy hour alone but because she could talk to me here. Communicate with me. We shared so many wonderful times on these beaches. Vacations, memories, boogie boards, happy hours. She could remind me of all that here.

Maybe Coleen’s on to to me and my theory about confronting the memories, looking at the pictures, feeling the hurt and anguish and loss. Then moving forward, healing, being safe. Maybe she knows all about that process. Maybe she’s encouraging it.

Maybe she even invented it.

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