Watching the white waves of the summer ocean sneak onto the beach always gave Lesley goosebumps. It reminded her of the old stories her grandfather had told her when she was a young girl, perched on his lap, listening attentively to every detail.  It reminded her of the distinctive scent that only her grandfather had.  He smelled faintly of ocean dew and of old rotting wood.  As the foaming waves receded back into the ocean, she was reminded of how his touch was like that of a wave on the sand how it arrived with an undoubted authority and how it slowly shrinked back away with a certain gentleness to it. 
As she sat there in the wet sand thinking of her grandfather, she felt a warm hand on her shoulder, “I’m about to come in, don’t worry about me,” she said letting out one final breath of true bliss.
“I wasn’t worried, just don’t want you to get too cold out here and lose track of time,” explained the deep, concerned voice that one would think to belong to an older man.
Lesley replied, “I know, Dad, just give me a few minutes please.”
“Are you thinking about Dad?” he asked, trying to comfort her, “I know that you are having a rough time with all of this Lesley, if you need anything you can talk to me. Your mother and I were going to go visit him in the morning if you’d like to join.”
At that point Lesley’s father began to get up from his position next to Lesley and walked back towards the small house off the beach that their family had owned for decades.  Lesley took one last glance across the beach and shed a single salt-stained tear as she turned on the picturesque setting sky, having to pry herself away from watching the final beautiful moments that the sun had to offer.
Shaking the clingy, magnetic sand off of her feet, Lesley approached the old wooden steps that she had been raised racing up and down.  She recalled all of the agonizing splinters that these steps had given her and all of the wonderful memories she would not trade for the world. Step by step, Lesley had gained a certain mastery over these steps being able to climb them effortlessly as a goat up a rock face.  Once Lesley had reached the final step, she came face to face with the wire door that she had swung open every time she and her cousins flew through the door so as to be the first one to get into the chilling, but welcoming embrace of the ocean.  As she stood there she glanced at the hinges and edges of the door.  She wondered after so much abuse how those hinges still stood firm and upright; however, she did notice that the paint was beginning to chip away and that the layer below was visible yet again.  As she pondered on the paint she couldn’t seem to recall a time when the door did not require another layer of fresh paint.  She thought to herself that perhaps she would give the door a new coat to start a new chapter of its life.
Lesley turned the old, worn, spotty brass doorknob as she felt the sun's last ray of light hit her back.  The door opened silently at first as it always had, but once it was opened halfway the screeching creak warned the entire house that someone had entered.  Lesley tiptoed her way to the ancient sofa that she had set up her bed on so as not to awaken anyone that had already fallen asleep.  As she crawled into her temporary sleeping space she tried to cocoon herself in her blankets so as to provide a comfort similar to that of her grandfather’s embrace.  She dreaded the idea of visiting him in the morning like her father had suggested, for she did not want to see someone who wasn’t her grandfather.  She did not want to see a substitute for what her grandfather had been.  She did not want to see a temporary placeholder for her grandfather’s being.  But as she was thinking, Lesley’s eyes grew heavy.

The sound of grease sizzling and popping alerted Lesley’s senses to the smell of freshly cooked bacon in the morning.  As Lesley began to gain consciousness she also noticed the distinct smell of her grandfather’s waffles.  The smell was so unique because the waffle iron had doubled on desperate times as a means to thaw out bacon he had forgotten to take out of the freezer the night before.  For a split second, as Lesley was unravelling herself from her blankets, she thought that her grandfather was the one making all of this food.  But as she began to put her feet on the cold floor and straighten out her back into a deep stretch, she saw that it was not her grandfather, but instead it was her aunt that was preparing the food.  As the aunt was starting to put the last pieces of bacon in a wad of paper towels she said chirpily, “Good Morning Lesley! You must’ve slept mighty well, your parents tried to wake you up but you just slept right through it.”
“Where are they now?” Lesley asked.
“Oh your parents? They went to go say goodbye to your grandfather.  They should be back anytime now,” the aunt answered nonchalantly.
Lesley was visibly distraught at this news.  While she may have played it off to everyone that she did not want to see her grandfather for a last time, she desperately wanted to say goodbye to him on her own terms.  Her terms were both that he was able to understand what she was saying, and that he would be there to guide her through her loss before he finally had to leave for good.
With a slight wave, as a flag in a mild wind, Lesley fell over back onto the couch.  She breathed in a faceful of blanket and yearned desperately for her grandfather’s embrace to comfort her.  Instead she heard her aunt’s clumsy feet waddle over the floorboards toward her.  Her aunt dropped onto her knees next to her and started to pet Lesley’s face shushing her muted cries telling her that everything would be alright.  As Lesley began to regain her composure, she heard her aunt ask sympathetically, “You’ve been holding that in for a while haven’t you honey?”
Lesley did not answer and instead presented herself to her aunt in a gesture calling for comfort.  In response her aunt embraced her in a way that a mother embraces her child.  For a brief moment, Lesley began to feel at peace with the inevitable departure of her grandfather’s beloved soul.  At this time, Lesley’s aunt asked quietly and with great care, “Do you want me to take you to your grandfather? You still have time to say goodbye.”
Lesley quietly nodded into her aunt’s shoulder, holding back more tears.  After a few minutes, the two of them stood up and while Lesley’s aunt began to clean up the kitchen, Lesley started to get ready to see her grandfather.  She opened up the suitcase that her grandfather had bought her.  The suitcase was very plain for a girl her age when Lesley had received it; this was because her grandfather knew that she wanted to be a grown up just like him, so he bought her a suitcase to match his.  After Lesley was dressed, she and her aunt got into her aunt’s old station wagon and drove quietly to the nearby hospital that her grandfather was being kept at.  As they drove, Lesley once again began to stare out at the beach and the ocean.  But this time as Lesley contemplated her view, it was with a new perspective.  As she stared at the calming, methodical crash and recession of the waves, she thought of the waves as the ebb and flow of life.  And she thought of the new day as a point to move forward in her life.  She told herself that she would take her past and use it as a foundation on which to progress herself as a person.