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Holmes Beach

Julia O’Donovan

    I think I was about five that first time I went to Florida. I have a small photo album full of pictures from that trip. Me jumping in the pool clutching a swim ring, mom holding my hands walking me along the shore. Sitting with Grandma O’Donovan, pretending to be drinking a beer out of an empty bottle. That little album represents some of my most treasured memories of childhood.
    I never realized just how fond of those times I was until this trip with Fran. Just walking off the airplane, smelling that distinct Florida smell. This is my first time here without family or by myself to meet relatives. I just go on and on about people and places Fran has no clue about but she politely listens. The first time Fran and I walk on a beach, the sandpipers hopping amongst the waves and I am back on Holmes Beach. Walking along the shore picking up shells with grandma. The seagulls call and I am on grandma and grandpa’s driveway feeding the fighting seagulls with grandpa. Grandma and Grandpa joined his two sisters on Anna Maria Island in 1978. Family made a lot of visits down there. We once got my entire family down there together for Christmas which was quite a task. Being that my brother and sister are seven and eight years older than me. It was a lot of fun though. We rented a station wagon and somehow all of us- including the great-aunts and grandparents all fit in this thing. We were wedged in, but we fit. We called it ‘the bus’ and all we could do was laugh on wide turns because it felt like a carnival ride the way everyone got pushed together and you could hear the gas swishing in the tank. The Gulf was just down the street from grandma and grandpa’s. In the guest room, you could hear the sound of waves hitting the shore as you drifted off to sleep.
    Grandma suffered her second stroke in 1986 and my father brought them both back to Michigan. My mom and aunt J went and sorted through their stuff. I imagine it became lonely for grandpa’s sisters’ to the sudden departure of their brother and sister-in-law. They were all very close. They inquired often- might anyone be coming down soon? My sister and I took a trip out there in 1988. Our first time out there since grandma and grandpa moved. As strange as it was to see someone else’s car in their driveway, it did not really faze us as we saw them more now. It was great seeing Aunt Hazel and Aunt Rita again. They are so different, yet witty in their own way. They were delighted to see family again and treated us like Royalty. They asked how “Mary”- our grandma- was. Even though grandma and grandpa were no longer there, the schedule did not change. First the early bird dinner special. Then to the beach to watch the sunset, followed by a couple games of cards.
    A lot has changed in the years I have been away from Holmes Beach. Grandma’s death for one. Her death can still make me sad. I was a wreck when she died. She had been so sick I had forgotten how close we were. How much fun my cousin Mike and I used to have when we got to spend the night at grandma and grandpa’s when we were little. They would take us out to dinner, then somewhere to get a toy. Usually a toy truck or something; and we would always leave it at their house as part of our collection. Sometime after grandma’s death, an older lady came into the drug store I worked at with a little boy asking if we had a toy section. I told them we didn’t and the boy seemed very disappointed. She told him they would try elsewhere. I kind of thought this was his grandma, and I wondered if his grandpa was in the car having fallen asleep while reading the paper. Just like our grandpa.
    When grandma first came home she stayed with us. She slept a lot and I was very anxious to see her. It was late one night when my mother motioned to me that she was awake and I could say hello. She was sitting up, so I sat down next to her. Mom asked if she wanted her glasses and grandma said she could not see any better with them than without. Within a month she would be completely blind. She and my grandpa were moved in with my aunt J- dad’s sister. Grandma became fully dependent on people. It got to where at family functions I did not associate this tiny woman my aunt would lead in as the grandmother I remembered. All we could do was hold her hand and try and talk to her. She was still pretty sharp. She was pretty good about recognizing people by voice. Sometimes she would still break into that laugh. She had a very distinctive laugh. We cannot talk about her without someone saying something about her laugh.
    Grandma laid out in her coffin looked just like grandma. Her hair was curled and her eyes shut hiding the hollowness of them. The tears came at the first sight of her in her coffin. I kneeled down in front of her and cried like I had not in a long time. I could not stop. For the entire viewing I sat in a chair just a ways from the coffin and sobbed. A photo album was being passed around titled “Grandma’s Brag Book” and it had pictures of all her grand children. They passed it to me and I just started sobbing more as I pushed it away. That would have just killed me.
    This trip with Fran is my first time in Florida since we buried grandma. I never realized how much those times with my grandparents and great-aunts meant to me. This trip with Fran brought me to a place in my mind that I had shut off years ago, or maybe I had never even been in touch with those feelings. Until now. Hearing myself rambling about this time, that time, this place, that place. Poor Fran. I could not believe it when she offered to make the two hour drive to see my aunts. Fran was taken aback by my excitement. This was even before we entered the Island. Once we entered Anna Maria Island, everything became familiar to me. I could not sit still, pointing out different places. “Take it easy.” Fran said. “There it is!!” I yelled “What? Did we miss the turn?” she yelled. “No, that’s where my grandparents used to live.” “Don’t scare me like that.” She said. We finally got to my great-aunts, and they were so happy to see us. After all that driving, the visit was brief as it was near their bedtime (going on 8pm). Seeing them meant so much to me. They had Fran and I laughing with their wit and humor. I know I have grown a lot when the joy of seeing them is probably not something I would have felt two years ago. As we get in the car, I am so proud when Fran says “You have very nice Aunts.” Before we leave, we take a drive down the very road my sister and I used to play Frisbee on.
    It just happens sometimes, you get so wrapped up in what you think is important, that you forget where you came from. Almost let it get away from you.

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