The Last Beach Towel
In all the years of spending family time on the Alabama coast and in the cabin overlooking Boggy Branch, the washing and folding of beach towels has always been and always will be on the bottom of the list of chores. Possibly the task represents a time of closure and signifies that our time spent together in the Summer time on the Alabama coast has come to a close. When all is said and done with the goal of departure and as the cabin takes on a melancholy blanket of silence and when all have departed, waved good bye through open car windows, I postpone the washing and drying of all those multicolored beach towels. I suppose those beach towels mark and mirror the movement of the week.
The rooms can be cleaned, the boats scrubbed and buttoned up, the fishing tackled hosed down, but the pile of wet and sandy, mildewed beach towels stay put and stare at me. The pile is high and it calls to me but I tiptoe past it, dreading the conquering.
I move throughout the cabin organizing the spaces once filled with busy and happy motion and by the close of the day, I fold and roll up the last beach towel, clean, warm, smelling fresh. The week is over, the family has departed and our time shared on the Alabama coast has come to an end. The last beach towel is in place and so are the memories.