BEACH TOWELS

People underestimate the importance of beach towels.

A few years back, 17 to be exact. We were looking for a wedding gift for a special couple and wanted to find the perfect gift.  Not perfect in the way of extravagance, like diamonds and automobiles, but perfect within their relationship and our relationship with their relationship.  You see we’d already been married for a good long while and we knew more about beach towels than they did.

The things we love are the things we use all the time, Like the feel of your favorite coffee cup as the morning sun chases away the cold and promises that the beach will be warm today. Like old rocking chairs that hold you with a squeak and a sag, their arms worn from the embrace of a hundred hands. Beach towels fade and become frayed, their colors muted by the sun. Their patterns become less and less distinct having been together for so long.

When you use a beach towel it’s always fun. You lay them out, side by side in the bright sunshine, always partners in the day to come.  When we come back from a swim I always steal hers. She thinks I’m just having fun, she doesn’t know that when I lay face down, my head turned to one side I will smell her skin and the sun in her hair. Beach towels always smell like love.

As years go by you’ll lay the baby on one or wrap the shoulders of your son. You’ll bring them in for a beach towel hug and wrap them up like a mother's love. You’ll scrub the water from their hair just a little harder than needed so you can get that smile and a little shove. To your kids they will have always been there like the chip on the plate and the creak in the stair. They won’t know they were a gift from when you and you became us and us became a family.