Rocky Point

We put it on our calendars almost a year ago. October 8 – 14. Rocky Point. There is a beach house in Las Conchas, five miles from the gate. A few years ago, dad bought one of eight shares in Casa Hermosa, one of the smaller beach homes in a strip of paradise only four hours from home. We were all there, Dwight and I, our sons and their families, fifteen of us squeezed into four bedrooms and a queen-sized air mattress on the floor in the living room.

You can imagine what it was like, air temperature in the 80s, water temperature in the high 70s. We splashed and swam and rode jet skis. We played games and ate. We read and took naps. And the night before we left, after the children were in bed, the grown-ups sat around a fire pit under the stars and talked.

It’s good for a family to talk. Each of us shared what we loved about Rocky Point. We talked about our plans for the coming year. And we talked about Rachel.

Rachel was our 5 year old granddaughter who, on August 22, was found face down in the swimming pool at a home her parents were buying. Her 3 years old brother Jimmy was also in the pool, unconscious. Jimmy revived. Rachel, after 58 minutes of CPR finally had a pulse, but it was too late for her brain. Her funeral was a long week later.

She was a dear little girl with bobbed brown hair and liquid brown eyes who loved to sit on the porch swing with me whenever her family came to Tucson. I am angry she is gone and I am sad. Her parents are devastated. Of course we have the gospel and the wonderful truths of a resurrection and eternal life and that families can be united forever. But none of that takes away the mortal missing of her warm little body sitting next to you, of her musical voice when she sees you at the door and sings, “Grandma, come in and see my room.”

Until our last night talk around the fire pit, we hadn’t mentioned Rachel because we didn’t know how. What do you say to a parent who has lost a child? We asked her parents and they told us. “Tell us you’ve been thinking of us. Don’t ask how we’re doing. How do you answer that question?”

They told us how hard it was the day Dwight and I took them to the cemetery and we picked out a plot of ground for her grave. They told us how every day something reminds them of her and that she is gone. They said how important it was to talk about her. To remember her. To recall all those little details that keep her real to them.

Some of us said how losing Rachel made us want to be better, to act better toward each other, to be better parents, to improve. Losing her caused me to want to cherish time, real time that ticks away a day and is filled with opportunities. Losing her made me want to cherish relationships, too, so much so that I become impatient when I see callousness or thoughtlessness in my family and I have to stop and check myself before I say something I would regret.

At 11:30, after family prayers, we went inside for quesadillas and a cup of warm cocoa with marshmellows before going to bed.

It was a lovely way to end a week at the beach.