One
day this past summer a pot full of sunflowers mysteriously appeared on our
porch. I never learned who put them
there or why, but their big, bright, and cheerful yellow blooms caught my attention,
and I took to watering them regularly because they were so pretty. They also reminded me of a family visit on
Long Island that took place about five years ago.
Normally,
I prefer not to travel on Sunday. Sometimes,
however, exceptions to this policy become necessary, and because they are
exceptions, they are also memorable occasions.
On this particular occasion, Miss Patty and I were traveling to Long
Island on Sunday because on Monday she would depart from Kennedy Airport and
fly to Brazil for our daughter’s wedding.
And so in the afternoon of July 20, 2014, we drove to New London,
Connecticut, and then sailed to Orient Point, Long Island, aboard the ferry Cape
Henlopen. The weather on the water was
so beautiful and the crossing was so tranquil and sublime that it seemed, if not
actually sinful, at least morally deficient to not be at sea that Sunday. As always, though, the voyage ended too quickly,
and we drove off the ship and continued westward.
Diverting
this time from our usual route through the built-up North Fork villages from
Greenport to Riverhead, we followed Route 25A, a secondary road through the farmlands
of Eastern Long Island instead. It was a
pleasant diversion through less traffic and more open country, a restful
alternative fitting for a day of rest.
Along the way we passed several roadside farm stands open for business,
and as we neared Wading River, we came upon a roadside floral vender selling
sunflowers.
For
many years, I’ve been in the habit of bringing flowers to my Mom when returning
home for a visit. Usually, I picked
these up at the Petal Pusher in Penn Station or at Howard’s in Mineola. Today, however, while taking a more bucolic
route, an opportunity arose to get her a bouquet made up entirely of locally
grown sunflowers. Mom would love these,
we figured, with their bright yellow petals, dark brown centers, and green
leaves and stems. Uniform but not
identical, all these sunflowers would be strikingly different from a customary commercial
bouquet produced by a florist.
When
we arrived at the family headquarters about 6:00pm, Mom liked the sunflowers
very much. Following her usual custom,
she placed them in a vase with fresh water and put them on display in the
living room. Several times she remarked
on the brightness and cheerfulness of their colors and added that these ranked
among her favorite flowers. In the days
that followed, she enjoyed the sunflowers very, very much.
Also
in the following days, Miss Patty left for Brazil, and I had a pleasant visit
with my parents. On Thursday, July 24, I
took an afternoon train to Boston and then the bus back to Nashua. Our car remained on Long Island pending Miss
Patty’s return from the wedding.
In
the following years, I’ve come to associate sunflowers with my Mom. Aptly named, they have a sunny disposition that
resembles hers. Scientifically known as Helianthus,
their simple beauty and bright colors create a cheerful atmosphere wherever
they are displayed. How fitting, then,
that they should remind me a of someone who appreciated the beauty of the world
and who saw this beauty as the gift of a Creator-God to his human children.
One
part of the world whose beauty Mom especially enjoyed and appreciated was the
seashore, where the land and the sea intermingle. During her childhood, she spent summer vacations
with her parents and extended family at the seaside on both the North Shore and
the South Shore of Long Island. Later,
she continued to visit the seashore with college friends, and after that, with
her own family. Over a lifetime, she
became acquainted with Long Beach, Lido Beach, Point Lookout, Tobay Beach, Jones
Beach, Cedar Island, Oak Beach, Oak Island, Captree, Fire Island, Massapequa, Lindenhurst,
Babylon, Montauk Point, Orient Point, Mount Sinai, Port Washington, and the Long
Island Sound ferries. In addition, she sailed
the family sailboat on the Great South Bay for many years, and she made one ocean
voyage to Bermuda and the Bahamas aboard the Evangeline as a young
adult. During her last years, with
restrictions on her mobility, Mom could well have echoed the words of the great
seaman and poet John Masefield:
A wind’s in the heart of me, a fire’s
in my heels,
I am tired of brick and stone and
rumbling wagon-wheels;
I hunger for the sea’s edge, the
limits of the land,
Where the wild old Atlantic is
shouting on the sand.[1]
And
so Mom and my father both took great pleasure in visiting the South Shore barrier
beaches and voyaging aboard the Moon Chaser on the Great South Bay when
I returned home to see them.
My
parents still owned an automobile, so I drove them down to the oceanfront. On these outings we followed the Ocean Parkway
to our first stop at Oak Beach. There,
on a recently built fishing pier, we looked out at the Fire Island Inlet, watched
the fishermen go about their business, and decided if we should cross the
bridge to Fire Island itself or go to Captree for lunch. Often we did both. On Fire Island we admired the lighthouse,
sometimes hiking out to it on the boardwalk through the sand dunes and beach
grass. At the beach, we spent a long
time walking through the sand along the water’s edge and taking in the majestic
view of the great Atlantic Ocean. This
was always a sight like no other, a temporary escape from the densely populated
and heavily built-up urban area. At
Captree, we dined in the second floor Captree Cove Restaurant, and we enjoyed
the views of the fishing boat docks, the adjacent waterways, and the distant
lighthouse as much as we enjoyed the food.
On
days when the Moon Chaser was sailing, we drove from the house directly
to the Captree Boat Basin. This vessel
sailed on sedate sightseeing excursions in the afternoons, and my parents
always sat on the upper deck in front of the pilothouse on these voyages. From this vantage point, they had an
unlimited view of everything on the water.
Leaving Captree at 1:00pm, the ship always proceeded eastward through the
State Boat Channel to the open water of the Great South Bay. Then, she sailed along the northern shoreline
of Fire Island as far as the Fire Island Lighthouse. Along this route she wended her way among
fishing boats, sailboats, and the small trans-bay ferries that connected the
communities of Fire Island with the Mainland.
There was always plenty of activity, and thus plenty of sights to see,
on the bay. Once abeam of the famed Fire
Island Light, the Moon Chaser came about and slowly returned to Captree. After disembarking around 3:00pm, we usually had
an early dinner at the Captree Cove before heading back home.
Since
my parents could no longer drive, they appreciated the opportunity to ride down
to the barrier beaches and sail on the bay when I visited them. As much as they both enjoyed these
excursions, though, it was my Mom who always spoke admiringly and even reverently
about the beauty of the seashore and the open ocean. She saw the hand of God in everything
there. The innumerable grains of sand on
the beach, the abundance and variety of life in and alongside the sea, the sun,
moon, and clouds in the sky, and the seemingly limitless sea and sky stretching
out to the horizon and far behind—all of these and more demonstrated the existence,
genius, and perfection of God for her.
Mom never read this verse, but having studied Thomistic theology in
college with the Ursuline nuns, she no doubt would have agreed with the scriptural
assertion that:
all things denote there is a God;
yea, even the earth and all things
that are upon the face of it. .
.and also all the planets which move
in their regular form do witness
that there is a Supreme Creator
(Alma 30:44).
Like many merchant seamen, Mom
understood that there was much more to the sea than salt water. She appreciated the spiritual aspect of the
sea, and gazing upon it always involved an epiphany wherein the Supreme Creator
manifested himself to her.
This did not happen only at the
seashore, though. Mom saw the hand of
God in such diverse locations as the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania, the pine
tree forests in Maine, the Botanical Gardens in Brooklyn, and the birds and squirrels
in the trees of her own backyard. She
loved the world of Nature in all its forms, and she recognized it as a divine
masterpiece. Several times, when viewing
the stars in the night sky, she asked rhetorically, “How can anyone look at all
this and not believe in God?” A poem she
wrote captures this thought more artistically:
A precious orb that floats in space
Our Earth’s unique, a special place
Where living things together ride
An enormous carousel, and bide
In a friendly atmosphere
Of rich black loam and water clear,
Of sun and shade and rain and snow,
Miraculous ingredients to make us
grow.
Dear Earth, some scientists
proclaim
You were thrown from the sun,
without aim
Or design, to become by destiny
This wondrous planet, this prodigy.
Are you just a freak in space
Or do you exist through divine
grace,
A perfect setting for a priceless
gem,
God’s image and likeness—men?[2]
Such was my Mom’s view of the sea,
the world, and the cosmos. They were all
the work of the Supreme Creator, and she often expressed her gratitude for the
majesty and beauty of his creation.
And so whenever I arrived back home
with a bouquet of flowers, Mom saw them, too, as the work of God. She always remarked on the beauty of their colors
and then arranged them in a vase for display.
She always enjoyed these fresh flowers, and she especially enjoyed the fresh
sunflowers that summer day five years ago.
No doubt she would have enjoyed the pot of sunflowers that mysteriously
appeared on our porch this summer, too.
Now
let’s look at some pictures! First, in
this vintage photograph from 1947, we seen my Mom on the right with the radio
officer and a fellow passenger aboard the Evangeline of the Eastern
Steamship Lines on a voyage from New York to Bermuda and the Bahamas and
back. The ship sailed from New York on Wednesday,
July 30, and returned about a week or so later.
Next,
we see my parents on the fishing dock at Captree on Thursday, June 25,
2009. The buoys in the water behind them
delineate the State Boat Channel, which leads eastward to the more open waters
of the Great South Bay and the Fire Island Inlet.
Here,
on her day off, the Moon Chaser reposes at her berth in the Captree Boat
Basin on Thursday,
September 19, 2013.
In
this lovely view we see the Fire Island Light from the Moon Chaser on Thursday,
August 26, 2010.
Finally,
the million dollar view. From the uncrowded,
postseason, bathing beach on Fire Island on Thursday, September 19, 2013, we
look at the great Atlantic Ocean. A
perfect place to contemplate the divine design of the world and the meaning and
purpose of human life.
[1] John Masefield, “A
Wanderer’s Song,” in Salt-Water Ballads, New York: The MacMillan Company,
1913, p. 61; reprinted by Bibliobazaar, n.p., n.d.
[2] Justine Elizabeth
Burns, “The Earth,” unpublished poem, one of many in her personal papers.
