Finding A Surprising Connection To My Dad In The Sand
My father built ships out of sand — literally
A misshapen boat built out of sand. Some beach toys scattered. No one to captain the ship.
I could make out the bow and a seat. Noah and I were racing back to our umbrella swinging buckets filled with ocean water when I spotted a sagging sand sculpture that resembled a ship.
Join Me: Tickets and info for my July 14 Writing Workshop
Disability Pride Month Event: I’ll be giving a talk at my local library on July 23
My family was up ahead and hopefully the two of us would deliver these pales before they completely emptied.
The beach is a place to spend time with family. The beach is also a place to reflect. We visit Wildwood, New Jersey every year and squeeze in as many beach days as possible. My wife Lisa has been vacationing in the Wildwoods for thirty-six years and we’ve continued the tradition with our son.
It feels like a dream but I spent many hours in the sand when I was Noah’s age. First, I lived in South Carolina and then Georgia. I had perpetual shoulder burns since I wasn’t sporting a swim shirt like my son. With little Coppertone, my father brought our family down South from New York in the 1980s to be near the ocean. He was drawn to the sea and bad business deals.
On the beach, I feel connected to my Dad.
Dad built his own boat out of sand that my sister and I could sit in and make believe we were swashbucklers. It only took him thirty minutes to construct a huge vessel using garden tools. He had been perfecting the boat’s blueprints for a decade, beginning his nautical work on vacations with his first three sons in the 1970s. He took a brand new family on a years-long vacation and now he had even more time to devote to shipbuilding.
No matter that his creation only stood for a half-day.
When I got older —seven and eight — he still finished his masterpiece before applying sunscreen even though I no longer pretended pirates. The boat would remain unoccupied, although it looked majestic beside beach chairs, boogie boards and a sandy Game Boy.
A Reading & Workshop: Finding Your Digital Writing Voice
I Didn’t Dream As A Kid: A Text Message Sent To Myself
Making Sense Of A Chaotic Childhood Through Memoir
I was fourteen the last time I was on the beach with Dad. I was seeing him for the first time in years and we decided to walk along the South Carolina coastline. I removed my sneakers so they wouldn’t get soggy and he kept the pair my grandmother bought for him upon his release fastened. We barely talked and there was little explanation on where he’d been or how he found himself on the same shore we used to search for shells. This was his reentry back into society.
It only made sense the beach was the place where we’d cease to be father and son. The beach is where we first forged the bond. He fed me sandwiches, let me ride on his back and saved me when a current swept me beyond a sandbar there, but the beach is also one of the last places I saw him for another ten years.
No hull was carefully patted with a spade that day. We didn’t search for a weathered stick that served as a boat’s antenna either.
I remembered those tiny waves lapping at my feet as a teenager now carrying buckets with Noah. There was a hole to fill near our umbrella but then that last beach day with Dad returned fully painted when I spotted the remains of someone else’s sand boat.
It wasn’t sleek like Dad’s design but I recognized the outline of another parent’s work.
I didn’t build a boat out of sand for Noah on our week-long vacation. I’m unsteady on sand being a disabled person with cerebral palsy. Its instructions are also lost with a man who held onto all of those manuals like a recently dredged pearl. Instead, I’ve figured out how to be a father and a Vacation Dad carrying pales for Noah — year after year after year after year.
Finding Your Digital Writing Voice with Chris L. Vaughan (Zoom):
I’ll be teaching a workshop this summer and it’s about finding your digital writing voice through the Hudson Valley Writers Center on Tuesday, July 14 from 7pm-8pm. Including more about the workshop below and you can purchase a ticket here.
In today’s evolving digital landscape, writers are publishing work and growing their audience independently. In this one-hour workshop, you’ll explore the ways we can hone our authentic online writing voices and learn how to share unique stories that find communities meaningful to you. We’ll discuss establishing your digital writing identity, creating a weekly publishing routine and the joys of joining a supportive literary family with Chris L Vaughan, a New York Times-published writer, covering disability and parenting on Substack.
Library Event: I’m also excited to announce that I will be giving a talk for Disability Pride Month at my local Warner Library in Tarrytown, NY on July 23 from 1:15pm-2pm. Details here.
Noah’s Favorite Song This Week: We hadn’t made it through the entire summer playlist yet but Noah is especially loving all of the Olivia Rodrigo songs.
Read more of my work here:
New York Times: With a Baby on the Way, It Was Time to Embrace My Disability
Writer’s Digest: Adaptations I Learned Writing a Memoir With Cerebral Palsy
USA Today: ‘Dadda is disabled’: How I teach my son about my cerebral palsy
I love everything you write, especially how you have transformed pain into being a great father and companion to Noah.
Very touching story Chris. I'm glad you enjoyed your time with Noah and Lisa. Your share stirred up a great memory of a past last-minute Wildwood July 4th of my own.
While it stirred up memories of your experiences with your Dad that seem bittersweet, it also seems to serve you as motivation to do the best you can with Noah and most importantly, be there for him. Clearly you are.
BTW loved the reference to the "sandy" Game Boy. I had one of those (not sandy).