Last Swim

The sun draws beads of sweat from my upper lip. I trudge through the uneven sand, arms loaded down with chairs, bags, a cooler, and several towels. I squint in the face of the bright sun and scout the shoreline for a clearing suitable to set up an afternoon oasis. Any spot will do, just pick one.

It’s early September, warm enough for a late summer beach day. We’re on the outer margins of the season now, when the mornings are cool and the evenings come early, crisp and edged with the smell of wood smoke and dirt. 

Today, the sun’s rays are hot but the breeze off the water feels like autumn. I consider staying dry with a book in my lap, while my feet burrow holes in the toasty sand. But this is likely the last beach day of the year and I won’t waste the opportunity to float on my back in the briny water of the Northumberland Strait, sun beaming overhead.  

A cramp has worked its way into my hand. I drop our things and unpack quickly. Make my way toward the water to catch up with my daughter, already knee-deep and hollering Hurry up, Mom.

As my feet splash through the surface, somewhere in the back of my mind, I hear my mother reminding me to put on sunscreen.

My legs push harder with each step through the water. It doesn’t take long to catch up to her.

Soon I’m waist deep and I crouch even lower to keep goosebumps at bay. My field of vision is just a few inches above the waterline.

“Mommy, watch me!” She is bobbing up and down, barely able to contain her excitement. Her arms fly up out of the water and salt splashes my eyes.

Through blurry droplets hanging off my eyelashes, I see a purple swim shirt hover on the surface. She stretches her limbs out in all directions in a starfish formation. She holds the pose, then breaks it. Her feet find the ocean floor, and she stands up. Wild strands of dark hair cling to her face. With a wide, toothy smile, she squeals, “Did you see? Did you see?”

I’m beaming. “Yes, I did! Great float, honey!”

I feel something wrap around my thigh. I reach down, peel the thin, flat string of seaweed from my leg, and toss it a few feet behind me.

When will another recurrence come for me?

How much longer can I cheat death?

I carry the questions everywhere with me like luggage.

One day you’re heading into work with dreams of growing your career. The next you are sitting in a doctor’s office wrapped in a hospital gown ten sizes too big while a surgeon with the bedside manner of a scalpel says words that you barely understand. 

Life, on pause. Treatment is your only agenda for the next year.

Since that day, Christmases, birthdays, summers come and go. As they do, the same thoughts play on a loop. A dark soundtrack with a haunting echo.

Putting the star on the Christmas tree: Will this be my last?

Blowing out birthday candles: How many more of these will I get?

Walking along the shoreline in summer: Will I ever feel sand and salt underfoot again?

Her goggles are too tight on her head and they squeeze against her eyes so firmly that when she takes them off, the outline is still visible around her eyelids. It looks painful but she doesn’t seem to mind.

“Want to see me do it again?”

Something warm unfurls in my ribcage. My smile doesn’t falter even as intrusive thoughts circle. I bat them away. Readjust the strap that has fallen from my right shoulder. “You bet I do!”

The fear comes in flashes. I do my best to stop it the moment it enters the atmosphere. Pluck it from the air and stuff it into my back pocket. 

Savor everything. Hold tight to the details.

Recurrence has happened once already. One mid-July evening just two years ago. A dizzy spell around a campfire led to scans, surgery, and radiation—to fear and a future unknown. 

The sound of her voice darts across the water, jolting me back into my body. “A feather! Mom, do you see it?”

She points to the sky just over my left shoulder. I turn, shielding my eyes from the diamonds on the water. Above, white wisps in the shape of a feather paint the cerulean sky.

“It’s beautiful! What other shapes can you see in the clouds?”

She drops back into a float and scans the sky, weightless and unafraid. 

The thought slices through. Clean and unforgiving, too heavy to be hidden away. Will this be my last swim? My last summer?  

My mind drifts with the waves.

A feather. Perhaps a gift from my mother? They often decorated the fancy hats she used to wear. Bold and glam. That was her style. Even in her last days, she looked fashionable. The nurses always complimented her long perfectly manicured nails. The fancy bracelets stacked on her wrists.

She, in a hospital bed, losing her life to cancer. And me, my forty-year-old body curled beside her in the shape of a question mark, studying the topography of her face, trying to make sense of a world without her in it.

I blink away the memory. My daughter’s teeth are chattering and goosebumps dot her arms. 

I pick a strand of seaweed off my arm. “You ready to get out?”  

I hear the reluctance in her voice as she says yes. 

Neither of us is ready to leave the water just yet—to admit that it’s unlikely we’ll get to swim together again this summer. Looking towards the shoreline, I spot our things on the dry sand—the chairs, the towels, the snacks. I’m not ready to rejoin our belongings on shore.

“Maybe just a few more minutes?”

She nods and I take one more opportunity to float and study the cloud formations. The feather is now stretched and distorted, morphed into formless curls of vapor.

I wonder if my daughter will remember this day, this visit to the beach when she splashed in the salt water and laughed and showed off her front float and then her back float. 

I drop my feet, find the hard sand below me, and stand up to find my girl. She is slowly making her way towards me. I swim the rest of the way to her. 

“Want to pull me into shore?” 

She nods—excited at the chance to tow me behind her. She, the tiniest tugboat, and me, a battle-scarred ship with missing parts. I hold her small shoulders and let my legs stretch out behind me. She begins to pull me back towards the shore.

Gliding effortlessly, my thoughts return to my mother—of how I nearly collapsed under the weight of grief when I lost her. Moving through my days with shoulders encased in concrete. My legs, weak under the heaviness of it all. 

My eyes sting when I think about the grief she will someday have to carry. Of how one day she will have to bear the weight of me. Of losing me.

But not today.

A chill climbs up my vertebrae, shaking the darkness from my thoughts.

Today, I am grateful for this moment. For this day. Whatever weight my daughter will have to bear after I’m gone isn’t real. Not yet. 

Today I am almost weightless as I hang on to the small pair of shoulders in front of me and my daughter pulls me through the ocean. Her giggle skipping along the water’s surface like a smooth rock.  

Today the sun is warm and I taste salt on my lips and I think about how the towel that’s been warmed by the sun will dry me off when I get to my beach chair.

Today, we get to play a rare game of role reversal made possible by the buoyancy of the salty sea.

I readjust my grip. She laughs. How funny it is to be pulling her mother through the water.

Someday, she will have to bear the weight of me.

But today is not that day.