As I child, the Kennon family ALWAYS had a yearly beach trip…whether it was tent camping, trailer camping, or as we’ve gotten older, condo or house rental. This year sadly the family didn’t go as a group. However, Cayden and I took a few days for ourselves and gratefully Elizabeth and her boys joined us so we still had a ‘family’ gathering of sorts. Saturday, we put the boat in at Taylor’s Creek, the most picturesque location near Beaufort, NC. 
We literally spent the whole day on the water till the sun went down, surrounded by wild horses, sail boats, and the gentle warm waters of a late August day. If any of you have ever done a marathon day of sun, sea, waves, salt and wind you know it will tire you out. More than one member of the crew flaked out as we ‘rolled’ with the green Atlantic waves through the day.
I helmed most of the day and by the time we orchestrated our way back, the sun was setting over the water. As a photographer my favorite light to photograph is sunset. The orange fiery additions of light just highlight everything and it brings such color out of your normal washed out bright midday light. But in the end, we were all beat down.
The photos were taken and this was a wrap on my shortened but summer vacation trip to the beach. I didn’t feel much like eating so Elizabeth took the crew in one car and I pulled the boat back in the truck.
The water was a deep aqua green/blue as we pulled the boat out of the water. A feeling of a bit of melancholy rolled over me like waves as we tied down the boat for the last time this summer. The cool 70 degree temps with humidity still held a shadow of summertime feeling as we, the sea, grass, and wind parted ways. The now green-black waters of Taylor’s creek reflected behind me as I moved out onto the 2 lane blacktop heading back to Morehead City, across the bridge to Emerald Isle.
Crossing over the Gallants Channel means actually passing over the old drawbridge. This is a left behind era bridge…where from the water you pass under the old metal partitions supported by concert of wooden pilings and concrete that falls under the term of ‘relic’. The bridge was build around 1956. The old lantern style multi colored lights swing on a hinge when the bridge parts in the middle and stands tall for ships to pass through the opened gap. There is a old control room building right off the side of the 2 lane traffic area, where the operator stands. The room isn’t that big and the old wooden walls shows the sign of age.
As I passed by, dragging a few thousands pounds of truck and boat I saw through the dusk of the evening an elderly gentleman illuminated by the dim orange incandescent lights bouncing off the bare white walls of the control room. The warmth of the light revealed the image of someone who had aged in solidarity with the old bridge; both of them left looking at a future where ‘they will no longer be needed’.
Beaufort is building a large new high-rise bridge to replace the small, old draw bridge. Traffic flow to and from the island keeps traffic backed up at the bottleneck of the old bridge, sometimes for miles, and from what I can dig up, finding parts for the old Gallants Channel drawbridge is impossible. As bridge and operator face the future of no long being needed I could see the look in his eyes, the look of seeing past me, one of his customers to an uncertain future. Though it was only a fleeting second of time as I passed over his bridge, his large round glasses reflected the image of truck and trailered boat passing him by…
Passing him by…For all of us, this life is ‘passing us by’. I wondered about him and myself as we trucked past. What does he hold in his heart? What meaning have the years brought him? Does he see the nameless faces that cross his bridge everyday and think of the lives that he touches that NEVER know who or what he is about? How many children have crossed his bridge and never even saw, let alone thought about the old man running the bridge? It made me think…
Though our tasks in life might seem like they hold ‘little’ value, as you age, you realize that everything you do is intertwined, woven into a larger tapestry or mural that without you, would be incomplete. In my opinion, it is why death is so hard for us…because the tapestry, the mural we see is only one sided and pale in color and form…we are only human. We can’t see the bigger picture. But as I watch the color image of the bridge operator fade into sepia and eventually black and white in my heart and mind, I see how interwoven, like the sinews of muscles and flesh, we all are.
Can I say enough, “Be as gentle and kind as possible?” Can I say enough that love MUST abound, and can I say enough how hatred for one another must be put away? I may not love someone’s actions and choice and I can put up boundaries, even violent if need be, but I MUST love. There is only one person I know of who mastered the art of love and He can live in us.
This journey is fleeting and no matter what you choose to do with the gift you have been given, it is going to pale in comparison to time and space of eternity. Choose good over evil, choose kindness over anger, choose the long run and not just the short haul. See past the ‘now’ and look for the reflection of what you leave behind, the legacy you offer to the future, and be good to one another.
Your day will come when it’s time to put down this life, whether it happens a piece at time as you age, or abruptly. Either way, don’t let this life ‘pass by’.
Peace on your Journey this week. 
