The Shell Collector

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My earliest memory of the beach is of it being a harsh place for a wheelchair. I remember the ruts the rubber tires made, how the sand grabbed and tugged. My mom would cuss and struggle and lean against the handles to get Grandma down to the sea foam and shells, close enough that she could hear the waves crashing. I would try to help, but I mostly got in the way. I remember the sweat dripping from my mother’s nose and evaporating off the hot sand while Grandma sat wrapped in her blanket. She was always cold toward the end.

The shells were hard to find back then, but not impossible like today. Mom would tell us stories of what the beach was like in her time, and every now and then Grandma would tell us older stories still. Stories of bounty. Of seas teeming with fish, beaches crawling with crabs, skies dotted with birds.

She would whisper of shells with minor flaws that were left behind, of days when shellers picked over all that washed up and tumbled in the surf. I remember thinking Grandma had lost her wits the way Grandpa had before he died. I remember wandering down the beach, just six years old, hunting for shells rather than watch her waste away, rather than listen to stories of a world I did not believe in. A living world.

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