What a night
We came down to the beach yesterday for the weekend to bury my uncle at sea. He died back in April and we had a service for him back then but we waited until now to put him in his finale resting place because today was his birthday. He loved the beach, was always coming to the beach or talking about a trip to the beach. He had a worn out Stay and Play that he had remembered front to back and he could point out all the places he’d stayed or wanted to stay.
We stayed at Myrtle because there is more for my son to do here but we planned to have our little service South Port. There is a restaurant there named the Yacht Basin Provision Company that he loved to frequent. It sits right on the water and looks like a bait shop instead of a restaurant but the food is terrific and you can drive a boat right up to the side of the place.
The idea was to meet some of his friends there, have our little memorial and then eat dinner at Provisions afterwards while telling crazy Ted stories and just having a good time. The problem is, it started to rain on the drive from Myrtle to South Port. And I don’t mean a little rain, I mean a torrential downpour. So bad that the people who got there ahead of us (we were running late) called and said they were thinking of closing the restaurant early because of the weather.
You see, Provisions doesn’t really have what you would call walls, just plastic “walls” that they can let down in bad weather (they close after Halloween for the winter). So the rain blowing in was flooding the dinning room and, since they had reports that it wasn’t letting up any time soon, they were going to call it a night. But our party convinced them to at least stay open for us and we resigned our selves to putting him in the ocean in the rain.
As I drove the rest of the way I prayed that the weather would clear so that we could do the ceremony in good weather. It was still raining when we got there but, half way through dinner, it let up. Then, as we continued to sit there, the sun came out. It was perfect. We all piled out onto the pear and got a beautiful sunset over the water as we had our memorial. I read Cross the Bar, we had a prayer and then we commited him to the sea. It’s where he’d want to be.
On the way back to the hotel we alternated Jimmy Buffett and Fleetwood Mac, belting out Go Your Own Way and then crooning A Pirate Looks At 40. It was a fitting tribute. I’ll miss him but I look forward to seeing him again some day.
Enjoyed reading that. Thanks for sharing.
