August 31st would have been our wedding anniversary, but Frank passed away 6 years ago. He was 91 and lived a full and interesting life, also serving in the Navy for 30 years. He retired as a Commander 12 years before we met, but as the saying goes; You can take the sailor out of the sea, but you can’t take the sea out of the sailor. He loved boats and was an avid fisherman. He could catch fish wherever our travels took us, even when no one (me) else was catching. Is that why they call it “fishing” and not “catching”?
We had good friends who were part of a compound in Baja, and we went there several times. Frank would go fishing with his friend Rol, but I had time to explore the local garden, walk on the beach and look for shells, write poetry, and come up with ingenious meals from what we were able to secure from the market and the garden. We took walks on the beach and one day I had a memory of walking with him in the early evening, and so to those dear widows who have lost their special someone, let me share a memory with you in a poem.
To My Husband
Come walk with me, my love, my dear, when twilight dims the sky,
Along the soft, deserted sands, let it be you and I.
Please take my hand as long ago, when love was young and new,
You scooped a sand crab up for me, from waters azure blue.
I hummed a song that came to mind, “A Closer Walk With Thee,”
And found you knew the very words, from a Dixieland melody.
Please take my hand and walk with me, along the Baja shore.
Let’s make a memory to keep, and tuck away before,
This lovely week in Baja flies and we must leave this land.
Oh walk with me, my love, my dear, and let me hold your hand.
Diana Wallis Taylor
Photo by Ave Calvar Martinez from Pexels
