This is why I love this place. Not a soul in sight. Of course, this wouldn’t hold true in July or August, but today? Today there was not another soul on the beach.

Though the air had turned cold and damp, we walked back down to the beach tonight after dinner. GP wanted to see if the holes he dug this morning had been washed away by the surf. I was surprised to see the sand was littered with a long trail of seaweed. This morning, the water was crystal clear and the beach was clean. Nothing but a few rocks and broken shells washed up by the waves.

I can’t stand on a beach without thinking of my dad. I remember how he taught me to dive under the waves. I was probably around my son’s age at the time. A little nervous, a little brave—wanting my dad to be proud.

I can’t remember the last time I dove in. The Atlantic was stone cold today. Like newly melted ice. I swam in this ocean exactly one time in 20 years. I jumped off a pier in Jamestown one August day a long time ago—just because I could.

I wonder if my son will ever swim in the ocean. Or learn to count the waves and read the tide. I wonder if he will ever sit on top of a surfboard, paddle out beyond the break or do something—anything—just because he can.

My son never knew my father. But I wonder what he would have thought. I wonder what they would have done together—given the chance—for one long endless summer on the shore.