Lost on the Beach

The family hadn’t realized how serious her condition was until one day they decided to take their eighty-seven-year old mom on a trip. The mother had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s just a couple of weeks prior to this event.

On a bright and sunny day the younger of the two sons’ decide to take his kids down for a week at the beach. They lived in the city and getting away for a week seemed like a perfect idea and since his divorce he hadn’t spent so much time with them. The weather forecast for the coming week would be hot and sunny days.

Therefore, the son asked his mother whether she would like to go and since she didn’t have anything planned for that week, she agreed. So off they went: the mother, the son and his two kids. The trip wasn’t that long, just a couple of hours and they had arrived at the hotel on the coast. It was a beautiful hotel just two blocks from the beach, very easy to find.

 On the following day they headed for the beach right after breakfast. The kids were aged seven and ten, a boy and a girl. They sat on the beach under the umbrella and played with their toys and the sand.  After a couple of hours in the sun, the mother decided that it was too hot, she was a bit tired and wanted to go back to the hotel.

The son was at loss for he couldn’t walk his mother back to the hotel and leave his kids alone on the beach while he did that. However, the hotel was just two blocks for the beach, all she had to do was walk two blocks and the hotel was right on the corner.

He explained it to his mother and made her repeat what he had said. He double checked whether she would be ok walking to the hotel by herself and she agreed.

Off she went. She was wearing a green bathing suit and a light blue hat on her head. She crossed the main street and started walking up the street to the hotel but then instead of walking two blocks straight ahead, she turned right at the first block and walked and walked until she realized that she was lost. All she could do was cry and she did just that.

She sat down on the sidewalk and cried and cried and cried. A woman in her near fifties stopped and asked her if she needed any help.

-         - Are you ok? Do you need any help?

-        - I am lost. I was heading back to the hotel from the beach and I took a wrong turn. I don’t know what to do.

-         - Well, first thing first, let’s try and calm down. Do you like tea?

They were standing in front of a coffee shop and tea would be the perfect drink to calm down this poor old lady. So they did just that. They had a cup of tea and got to know each other a bit. The woman’s name was Irene and she lived in the city also. Her daughter was a medical student at the Federal University in the city coincidentally the same place where the mother’s son taught, for he was a doctor and taught some classes at the Federal University. Time went by and Irene noticed that it was lunch time and she had to go home, but she couldn’t simply leave that poor old lady at the coffee shop.

-      -   Are you hungry? How about coming to my house for lunch? It is just a block away.

-       -  I guess that would be alright. I am hungry.

So off they went. The house was really very close to the coffee shop. It was a huge house and there was a butler and all. The mother had never been in such a lovely house before, well at least not that she could remember.

The two new friends had a lovely lunch together along with a couple of Irene’s grandchildren. After lunch Irene asked the mother whether she usually took a nap in the afternoon and she said that she was a bit tired. So the butler escorted her to the guest room where she took a short nap.

Irene thought about the fact that she needed to find this woman’s son. She thought about it and decided that the best thing to do would be to go for a walk on the beach and perhaps someone would recognize her or know about her disappearance.

Meanwhile the son was desperate. He had already gone to the police and filed a report about his missing mother. He also walked around the neighborhood asking people whether they had seen a little old lady wearing a green bathing suit and a blue hat. Nobody had seen her. He also told some people at the hotel. All she had to do was walk two blocks and she’d end up at the hotel. Where could she have gone?

After a two-hour nap, the mother woke up and Irene suggested that they go for a walk on the beach. She agreed for she still needed to find her son. As they were walking on the beach, a young couple approached them and asked her if she was so and so and if she was staying at a hotel with her son and his two children. She was happy because it was her and the couple was staying at the same hotel.

The couple offered to take her back to the hotel where she could find her son and she agreed. She and Irene said their goodbyes. In no time she was at the hotel telling her son this story.

Unfortunately, she and Irene did not exchange telephone numbers for the son to call and thank. Perhaps one day they will meet again. For the moment, the mother believes that she was taken care of by an angel.

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(Written February 6, 2013)
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