Working backwards on the day, it ends with an open air drive out to Aquinnah from Vineyard Haven where we waved farewell to my son and his fiancee as they left on the ferry from their time with us. This will always be the summer of their engagement; the summer I was turning sixty in the fall; the summer the youngest was twenty-one. My husband and I drive, alone, to the lighthouse to watch the sun go down and talk it all over so far: how they are coming and going in our lives now like the tides, in and out, here and gone. The sky is pinks and purples over the cliffs and the Gay Head Lighthouse beams its light in our direction, just a flash, and a turning away. This man, our son, a baby not yet born was with us when we said our vows that summer thirty one years ago. On the beach this morning, alone with the dogs, I found this sea worthy rope washed ashore, and this knot, tied in a figure eight, for infinity, for lasting, and everlasting ties. Our drive tonight, it started as an almost argument, those moments of stress or irritability that creep into transitional moments, inevitably. The drive starts in hurt feelings over nothing much. Silence, stewing. It's so easy in a moment like this to let good will unravel into tension, tension, and here it is, full blown, a fight. Over what? Over you hurt my feelings so I'll sulk and not say sorry, not let you say sorry. But this isn't how we want to spend the ride in the open air. Sulking. Sorry works. Say it, a word. Mean it, too, you can choose to mean it. Sorry works when you want it to work. When you want to see the sunset with the one you love the best and be grateful for the evening, and the knots. The knots staying tied.

All photos and text ©Kelly DuMar unless otherwise attributed