Susan Makara and Cheryl Somers Aubin

Susan Makara
“Shells in Moonlight”
Scratchboard with watercolor, 7 x 5 inches
Created using Cheryl Somers Aubin’s story (below) as inspiration.

Shell Stories
By Cheryl Somers Aubin

His powerful, skinny, tanned legs propel him down the beach in front of me.  He’s covered in sun-screen and wearing his favorite Mickey Mouse hat.  His red and white swim trunks hang down below his knees, and his big toddler belly pushes the trunks below his bellybutton.  Covered in sand and smiling, one of those radiant smiles that comes so easily to children, Charlie turns and holds up a shell for me to admire.

I am the holder of the bucket, the keeper of my son’s treasures.  As we set off down the beach along the Chesapeake Bay he told his dad, “We’re going to go get some angels!”  I’m not sure where he came up with this name for shells.

I wonder how much instruction to give my son about the art of shell collecting.  I am a veteran, having searched different shores and seas for perfect shells, collecting them for my home and to keep memories of the sea close to me.  During long winter days I often hold a shell in my hand, feeling it warm as I close my eyes to remember where I found it.  The memories of sun and beach and sand and wind and smell come flooding back.

I consider sharing my expertise with my son.  Do I tell him about the desirable shells – the whole ones, round and translucent, with perfectly symmetrical edges?  What about the shells formed with surprises of beautiful colors inside?  Should I encourage him toward the prettier ones and away from the broken, imperfect ones  – the ones he so readily picks up now to add to his collection with such incredible joy?  Should I want him to value only perfection?  Is this the truth I want for him?

Or should I tell him the truer truth: that there is beauty in the brokenness — stories in the rough edges?  The shells that have washed up on this shore will again and again be a part of the miracle of the water and the making of sand.  Will I encourage him to look past the beautiful, seemingly perfect ones, to instead follow the lessons of the shells and seek the stories?  Will he later remember this truth as he encounters the people who will come into and through his life?

I find that I seek sea glass now.  Shimmering bright under the water, it is broken sharp edges, smoothed now by the sea and waves and sand.  These are my treasures — the smoothed rough edges I desire.

There is a peace and a balance and a sense of rightness to be near my son near the water.  The eternal water that calls to all of us.

Charlie squeals and shows only joy with each find as the bucket I carry gets heavier.  I know that I will call on this memory this coming winter: Charlie looking down, picking up a treasure, and handing it to me for his bucket.  When we are trapped in the house together on a snowy day, we’ll take out his angels and be warmed by the memory we are making today.

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Susan Makara
“John”
Oil on canvas, 18 x 24 inches
Inspiration piece provided to Cheryl Somers Aubin

The Return of the Dolphins
By Cheryl Somers Aubin

He’s felt her absence every day, every hour, every breath. This was her favorite time of the day – the quieter beaches, the way the air started to cool as the long shadows made their way across the beach, much like a low, lazy tide. The sun sets behind him making his own shadow grow, skipping across the sand, creating mountains and valleys. She is here in the waves that break, the breeze that cools, even in each single grain of sand.

Autumn has come and there’s a welcome coolness in the air and a welcome quietness to this coastal town now that the summer families have returned to their homes and lives. The birds call and the waves crash and he listens to the rhythm of the water, smiling as he remembers bringing Ida here on their first date to this very bench he’s sitting on now, the one with the back that flips one way to see the water, the other way to watch the people on the boardwalk.

It’s hard for him not to cry, even as he smiles at the memory of the shy girl he liked so much. After the rides at the park and cotton candy, they’d sat close on this bench looking out at the water. He’d stolen glances at her, noticing the way she kept pushing her short auburn hair behind one ear, the way she sat up straight to try to make herself seem taller then the almost five feet that she was. He listened to the sound her flip-flops made as they hit against the bottom of her feet as she swung them back and forth. He doesn’t remember what he was telling her, but his upturned hand brushed her leg once, then stayed there, close. He reaches out his own hand and does the same thing now and remembers how she put her hand in his, palm up, too, so that he cupped her hand, stroked her fingers. It felt electric and loving and protective and connecting. Her touch was light at first, almost not even there, then she slowly eased her hand fully into his. He embraced her hand with his as they sat there quietly looking out at the water, aware of only each other.

He never tires of the beach, even after all these years. Like looking at a loved painting and seeing something new each time, the ocean is his canvas. He loves the salty feeling on his skin, the way that same skin absorbs the smell of the ocean and lingers. His hair has receded halfway back on his head but he still keeps his hair in a ponytail so the breeze won’t blow it in his eyes. He’s let his beard get long; both are silver grey.
He looks out at the water and sees dolphins break the surface in the eternal dance, perfect and beautiful. He smiles.

He squints his eyes and remembers the dolphins 25 years ago. No one knows why the three dolphins beached themselves that morning. Perhaps the dolphins got confused and were unable to “see” the slope of the beach with their sonar until it was too late.

He’d gotten a call around 5:00 am that morning. “Dolphins have beached themselves near 4th street. We need your help.” He got the call because he worked at the nearby community college teaching biology to uninterested kids. He was considered an expert at all things living, and a bit of a hippy, too. He woke Ida, they quickly dressed and grabbed something to eat on the walk to the beach. It was dark, and they’d buttoned up their jackets before reaching out for each other’s hand.

As they approached the beach, Ida took off running for the smaller one, the dolphin furthest up the beach. She stroked its back and whispered to it like a child. In her lilting Irish accent she said, “We’re going to get you home, baby. We are going to get you home.”

She called to him and to the other volunteers who were arriving. “Help me get her back in before the tide goes out.”

One woman took a bucket, filled it with water and washed water over the dolphin. The men debated how best to move her. Ida named her, quietly, and bent down to whisper “Keela,” an Irish name that means a beauty only poetry can capture. Finally, the group decided to roll the dolphin onto a tarp and drag her down toward the water. They slipped their hands under her. Her skin was slippery but they felt very faint ridges, too. The dolphin’s breathing by now was labored, and water spurted out from her blow hole.

Other groups did the same with the other two dolphins, and soon all were finally in the water. Ida followed her dolphin into the water, up to her chest, pleading with her to swim away and watching throughout the day as Keela beached herself again and again and again.

Finally, Keela was too exhausted and could swim no more. She used the very last of her energy and arched up toward the beach. She lay on her side; her black eye swirled around, her flippers and tail slowly moving up and down, back and forth.

He put his arm around Ida and guided her back up the beach, back toward their home. He was hoping she would not be able to hear, but did, the gunshot that put Keela out of her misery.

Ida never went to that part of the beach again. Through hurricane help, clean the beach days or even on a beautiful fall day’s walk, she would not go there, and so neither would he.

After Ida died, he did as she had asked. Every day he’d go to the beach and sit on their bench, their “lovers’ bench” they’d ended up calling it. He’d wait for the dolphins to come. He sat for hours the first day in a storm, the rain pelting him, mixing with the tears he cried, the grey black skies matching his anger and sorrow.

On the fourth day he finally sees them. Dolphins gracefully curving out of the water, a huge pod of them with smaller fish splashing in and out. He leans over and slips off his shoes, rolls his pant legs up. He puts the urn under his left arm and the cane in his right hand. He walks slowly down the worn, wooden stairs, taking them one at a time. Left foot first, then cane, then right foot, then pause. The pain in his leg has gotten worse since he lost Ida. On the bottom step, he stops and looks out. The dolphins are still there, and he knows what he must do. He smiles even as the tears start falling.

The sand is uneven, and a few times he fears he will lose his balance, but he makes it to the water’s edge. His gait is unsteady, but he holds onto the urn, holds onto Ida, determined to fulfill her wish. The tide is going out, so he walks a ways in the wet sand, his feet and cane sinking in. The water is cold and rushes up his calves, but still he goes a little farther in.

The water splashes onto his pants as he watches the dolphins. He hooks his cane over his arm and holds the urn out in front of him. He lifts the lid off and turns the urn slowly upside down. An off shore breeze catches the ashes and he watches them float up and over the waves. The breeze swirls the ashes higher and higher and out toward the dolphins.

“I-I-I-da love you…” he says softly. “Ida want you, Ida need you…” And he remembers her laugh as he softly sung this phrase over and over throughout their lives, and the way she would snuggle into his shoulder and sigh. “Ida love you, too,” she’d say.

His heart breaks then, breaks like the waves, like the dolphins in the water, like the sun coming from behind a cloud. He thinks about how easy it would be for him to just keep going forward. He wants to follow her ashes, wants so desperately to be with her, go where she is, beach himself next to her to draw his last breath so that he might join her.

But he remembers how long and hard she fought for the life of that one dolphin and how she would have fought for him, too. A big wave comes, splashing water up to his chest, almost knocking him over. It got his attention, of course, and he knows that wave came from Ida. “Go home,” she was saying to him. “Go home and go on…”

He bends down and rinses the rest of her ashes from the urn. The waves washing in and out, then over the urn. He puts the top back on, leaving a little water in the bottom. At first he walks backwards up the slight incline and the sand makes a sucking sound. Then he turns and faces the boardwalk, balancing once again the urn under his left arm, and his cane in his right hand as he moves to the drier sand.

The dolphins are gone now, Ida is gone now, the sun is setting in front of him, casting even longer shadows behind him. He takes the steps back up one at a time, sits again on the bench, wipes the sand off his feet and slips his shoes on, then rolls his pant legs down. He takes another long, last look at the water, at the shadows, at the beach. Softly under his breath he says, “I’ll come tomorrow, Ida, love you. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

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