Go With The Flow

Last Thursday my wife and I found a real surprise when we came home. Since our lot at the beach is somewhat elevated, the ocean normally never gets closer than about 40 feet to our home. However, on Thursday evening as we sat out on the deck, there were huge ocean swells and the water was coming all the way up to our brick fire ring. Before we knew it, our fire ring was destroyed and powerful waves were pushing the bricks towards the short sea wall in front of our patio. Many of our neighbors were out bracing their homes with plywood and sandbags, but being newbies at the beach, we were caught off guard and didn’t have the proper supplies to fend off the ocean waves.

 

I started to move all the patio furniture closer to the house, but it was too late. Huge waves roared up the beach and slammed over the top of our sea wall, flooding our patio with water and debris. Four houses to the south, the water was so high it flooded their patio and side yard and flowed all the way out to the street on the other side. There was nothing we could do to stop it, so we decided all we could do was “go with the flow”. Fortunately we were one of lucky ones. The tide receded and the inside of our home escaped damage but it reminded us that the ocean can be unpredictable and uncontrollable.

 

Life can also be unpredictable and uncontrollable. My next door neighbor at the beach, John, is a wealthy businessman whose last name is associated with one of the largest sporting complexes in Los Angeles. He is close to 70 years old and for the last 10 years he’s been married to a vivacious young woman from Columbia. She reminds me of Sofia Vergara on the TV show “Modern Family” because she is very loud, very passionate and very full of life….except that she isn’t really (full of life) because she has cancer. She’s been fighting it for a year and half but it’s come back again. The doctors want her to keep taking Chemo treatments but they also told her she probably only has 4-6 months to live.  Recently she told my wife she stopped taking the Chemo pills because they make her sick and bed-ridden. She says she doesn’t want her husband and children to remember her as sickly. She wants them to remember her the way she really is, happy, outgoing and passionate about life. I guess she has decided to “go with the flow” even though the outcome may shorten her life.

 

Death is a scary reality for sure, but it’s a definite reality for all of us. So perhaps that’s why it’s so important we cherish every day we have here on earth and make the most of it. If you knew today was going to be the last day of your life, how would you spend it? Who would you go see and who would you call? And more importantly….how do you know it’s not?

Life is like a coin.  You can spend it any way you wish,

but you only get to spend it once. 

                                                                                             ~ Lillian Dickson

Ocean Waves “go with the flow” onto our patio!