A Step on the Ocean's Sun || Narrative Series 01

Here begins a new series in which I will drop down into the scene of poignant moments in my life. The goal is to stretch my literary and narrative voice. Some years have passed since I have practiced the discipline of narrative memoir; forgive my rusty start.

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He and his wife were the expected guests every year. She always brought some casserole or salad or plate of pickles we had never seen before. The brothers and I would turn up our noses (as children do), and Mum would make us take a spoonful (as mothers do). She thought we were being ungrateful and rude, no doubt. The thing is: an adult finds identity in food offered and food provided, but we were kids. We loved them and we didn't want to eat mayonaissed apples to prove it.

Wearing sunshine in our hair and on our noses, we played with his grandkids. They were younger and blond and curious. We gathered shells as the sun slanted long across the beach and washed them clean in the rising tide. We built castles for imaginary princesses and filled the moat with seawater for our protective alligators and piranas. We were young and creative and alive.

Every year they were expected and every year they would come. Quiet; oh so quiet. She would talk to the ladies and he would sit back listening to the cadence in her voice. If I close my eyes and focus, I can just barely remember the sound of his soft, smiling voice. 

Years later, after he passed away his story was told. On the same southern beach I danced with his grandchildren, he was approached by an inconspicuous woman. "I am a survivor of the Holocaust," she whispered in the wind, "and I remember your face." It must have meant salvation to her to hold it so dear; he was one of the soldiers to liberate Auschwitz. 

He never talked about it; not even to his sons. They say there are some things you can't put words to. Here's to those who are too humble -- or too broken and shattered -- to even try.

Zamperini.

If you have spoken to me in the last year, chances are you have heard about Louis Zamperini.

That man changed me. 

I've just received news of his death and I sit on my couch crying silent tears. My reaction to news of strangers' death is often shock followed by outrage. School shootings, car bombs, horrific diseases, suicide: leave me hollow and quiet. But this, this is different.

As I read the news, I just closed my eyes and cried. Zamperini was on every imaginary list I had: who would you invite to dinner, which celebrity would you meet, which stranger would you take to an abandoned island with you. You name it, he was on my list. 

Because if a man's story can change you, how much more can the man?

Rest in peace, Louis. Thank you for sharing your life with us; we needed to hear it. I needed to hear it.

[Please, if you have not read his story then do so now.]