It was the trip of a lifetime! Tropical Cozumel island, white-sand beaches, sparkling blue water, fabulous restaurants, open-air parties, beautiful señoritas—my friend Kent and I had our week of Mexican fun in the sun all planned. We took the essentials: shorts, shirts, sandals, sunblock, swim trunks, scuba gear, and . . . the old man.
Great-uncle John had been having a rough year since Great-aunt Lizzie died. When I mentioned our plans, he lit up, hinting he might just want to go along. An eighty-year-old widower who’s slow to get around is not what I consider an ideal travel mate, but giving him a chance to see one more corner of the world offered an appealing alternative to leaving him alone with his grief while I frolicked in the surf.
John had an attitude from the moment we landed, stubbornly not interested in doing anything we tried to plan for him. As Kent and I geared up for our first trek on the scuba boat, John declined offers to come along and watch or to be dropped off at the museum, the Mayan ruins, or the plaza full of musicians and vendors. We gave up and left him to fend for himself at the resort.
That evening, after a day of glorious coral reefs, we all went out for dinner. A consummate lobster lover, John got excited about ordering a platter of his favorite shellfish. When it arrived, he looked very disappointed.
“Where’s the claws?” he asked. “What’d they do with ’em? That’s the best part!”
I tried to explain that only North-Atlantic lobsters sport the big, meaty pincers up front. Their Caribbean cousins have long antennae instead.
Not satisfied with these newfangled crustaceans, our curmudgeon just couldn’t understand why an island that teems with fresh seafood right offshore wouldn’t import “real” lobsters from thousands of miles away. He picked at his meal, but never gave it a chance.
Our activities that week became routine. John got up earliest each day and disappeared for morning walks. Every evening, we cleaned up and went out to a different restaurant so Kent and I could sample new and exciting seafood delicacies while John stubbornly ordered chicken or beef. John always went to bed early while we went out and partied in the plaza till all hours.
In spite of our differences, everybody seemed to be enjoying our island sojourn. On the last day, I dragged my sunburn out of bed and surprised John by asking, “Where we going?”
He looked me over, answering, “See the crabs.” He had a spot among the rocks down by the water where he liked to watch the eight-legged gremlins who scurry when you approach. I’d been seeing them near water all week, climbing piers, crawling along ledges, running sideways across the beach to disappear suddenly into little holes.
His walk slow and deliberate, John led me down a path through the jungle to a private little cove. I had to be patient, taking a long time to make a short trip to see something I’d already seen so many times before. As we moved among the rocks, there seemed to be thousands of the little critters running every which way to hide. He motioned for me to sit with him on a long, flat rock. I commented what a spectacular scene it was. He told me to be quiet and sit still.
After a while, slowly, one by one, first little crabs and then bigger ones, blue crabs and crimson crabs and brown and beige and spotted and even pretty striped turquoise crabs—they all started climbing back up onto the rocks all around us. Tiny hermit crabs, their beady little eyes peering from under seashell mobile homes, crawled from secret realms to scavenge here and there. An iguana, nearly two feet long, eased out of the brush to sun himself on a ledge jutting over the water. Two beautiful birds landed not more than a dozen feet away, striking regal poses for us to admire.
“I’m glad you brought me,” John whispered. “I’ll bet that museum’s okay, but this is what I wanted to see. The first two days, I walked around too much. Then I figured them little fellers don’t mind if I just sit right here. They’ll go on about their business.”
Not wanting me to miss my dive boat, he started to lead me back, stopping along the way to show me things—some brilliant bougainvillea blooms, an ensemble of yellow and orange and blue butterflies, a bent and gnarled la ceiba tree, a fat old toad who sits under the edge of a small shrub in the same spot every day, doing whatever it is toads do.
I offered to skip scuba and spend the day with him, but he shooed me off. Our dives that day turned out to be the best. Instead of swimming every which way frantically looking for things to see, Kent and I just drifted with the current, enjoying the splendor of tropical reefs, letting the barracudas and stingrays and moray eels go on about their business.
That night, before cleaning gear and packing bags, we went out for one last fancy dinner. John surprised us by ordering the lobster. After several tentative bites, he announced, “It’s just not how I picture a lobster . . . but it’s pretty good.”
We lost Great-uncle John last winter, but I’ll always have that week of white-sand beaches, sparkling blue water, and fabulous restaurants. That’s when we forgot what a lobster should look like and learned to savor the one we have. It’s when we remembered to cherish our beautiful world, good friends, the love of our families.
That trip was my chance to see life through an older man’s eyes, to slow down a little and look about with a new perspective, to remember what is good and right and important, no matter how far our travels take us.
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