Life - Message From The Past

22-Living Life

Late August

With the cancer in remission, Gwen needed to get away with just her children. She rented a cottage a short walk from the lake but far enough away from the crowded main beach. The hustle and bustle of a summer tourist town was the furthest thing from the mother of three's mind.

Gwen laughed as she ran along the beach with her two girls, Harmony and Chastity while Austin busied himself scraping spirals into the pristine sands along Lake Huron. The girls did not want to run any further and as they came upon a creek feeding into the lake they pulled on Gwen's arms to stop their mother.

"No more, Mom!" Chastity begged while her younger sister flopped onto the sand. "See! Harmony can't go any further!"

Chastity fell by her sister as the mother shrugged and sat between them. "You know, I remember there use to be a place that sold ice cream up around the bend there." Gwen pointed into the distance.

Harmony sat up. "Ice cream?"

Chastity held a hand up to shade her eyes from the midday sun. "Too far!"

Harmony raised her hand imitating her older sister. "Too far for Chast, but I can make it, Mom! For ice cream!" She giggled as she leaned into her mother.

"Anything for ice cream, Harm?" Chastity poked her baby sister.

The mother picked up a twig and began to write in the sand. The girls looked at each other before scrambling to her side. "Girls, I want you to always remember this."

Gwen's daughters stood on either side of her as Chastity read the message. "Where there is love, there is happiness."

"Mom, you forgot something!" Harmony took the stick from Gwen and carved a huge heart next to the words.

"How could I have ever forgotten that, my little princess?" Gwen knelt and hugged the ten year old dressed in a Princess Jasmine bathing suit.

Chastity waited for Gwen to stand then hugged her tightly before releasing her mother. "Mom, do you really love, Mr. Fartham?" Chastity shook her head, "Madeline said he took off for Mexico when you had to go back to the clinic." She kicked the sand. "Why do they always leave?"

"You know Chast, I do love him. I think I have liked him longer than I am willing to admit."

"But he took off!"

"Chastity, he is dying. People do some crazy things when they see no future. Trust me, kiddo." Gwen kissed her daughter as she took Harmony by the hand. "What do you say we see how Austin is making out?"

"Geek alert!" Chastity sarcastically cried out.

"Chastity, he is not a geek! He is just interested in the stars, planets and science!" Gwen defended her second born.

"Mom, he's a total geek! I don't know how we could be related!" Chastity walked backwards in front of her sister and mother explaining her thirteen year old brother to Gwen. "He is going into high school, he hasn't even looked at a girl! Austin is the only teenager who owns and knows how to use a telescope! And the only one I know who gets excited about solar flares!"

"Okay, come on Chastity, you made your point!" Gwen reached out, pulled her eldest child to walk beside her. "Let's see what he is working on."

As they returned to Austin the small spiral he had morphed into one of the most spectacular sand carvings ever made of the Milky Way Galaxy. He meticulously scraped two large spiraling arms around a large core with several smaller arms jetting out from the larger ones then stood back searching for a place to add even more details.