The Invitation
For twenty-seven years, I didn’t camp. I went turtle watching in a tent, but that's not camping.
Not since him. After dad passed that weekend, the tent stayed packed away, eventually given away and poles rusted and discarded. The beach trips as a entire family stopped. I told myself I was busy, that San Juan life doesn’t leave time for camping trips anymore, work filled that void. But really, I didn’t know how to go without him because we did everything as a family.
Then my coworker asked. Casually, a month before Easter . “We’re heading to Toco, camping with the family. You should come.”
I almost said no. Habit.
But I went.
I was eagerly awaiting this trip yet a part of me didn't want too.
But time passed and soon the Thursday before good Friday came. My brother and sister in law headed east to drop me off in Arima where I'd meet my friend.
That night at my friend's house I slept on the couch the kids left there beds to bunk out in the living room too. Soon morning came everyone checking there bags one last time before our ride got there.
By 8am we were on the road, the group stopped to get doubles, me I had my cream cheese and crackers with some lime juice. Then we continued our journey to Toco.
Skipping ahead of our arrival on the beach, mounting the tent off loading everything of the truck etc.
This story jumps to the early morning hours of glorious Saturday.
I woke up before everyone, In Toco you don’t need an alarm you just sense it.
Walked down to the bay, just a stone throw away alone while they were still fast asleep bundled under the tent. The sky was dark-ish grey-blue, the boats in the shallows like old friends with their blinking lights. And then the sun broke over the Atlantic and turned the water to gold, like God had lit a match.
I stood under the branches of a huge almond tree and thought, “You’d like this, Dad." You’d be holding a cup of coffee and a cigarette.
Grief doesn’t end. But sometimes it makes room. That sunrise, it made room for me to feel something — the man who taught me to love the coast, and the people who asked me to come back to it.
Dyla’s invitation was simple: “Come camp with us in Toco.”
I said yes before I could talk myself out of it. First time in twenty-seven years.
Her family moves like a tide. Her family and friends debating over the best way to set up a tarp. Kids running circles around the coolers, barefoot and loud. Plates of food passing hand to hand, nobody asking who brought what. Just togetherness, ease, and everything unpracticed.
Watching them, something cracked open in my chest. It always came back to my pass. I don’t think people see through me unless I talk, because I was having a good time, but also battling memories.
When my dad, I put myself in the ground with him. Not all the way — just the parts that knew how to be light. I then became responsibilities, bills, school fees etc. Making sure together with my brother everyone else was fed, everyone was safe, was happy. I told myself that was living. That, that was enough.
It wasn’t.
But that morning the sky was still, and soft. The boats sat in the shallows, blue and white, patient like they’ve been for decades.
I stood under those branches, alone, and finally understood what I was seeing: I forgot how to choose me.
Dad wouldn’t have wanted that. He taught me to love the coast by living, by casting a fishing line, by laughing loud when a fish got away. He didn’t raise me to disappear.
I took this photo because it was the first morning in twenty-seven years I wasn’t just surviving it. I was in it, living again.
Dyla and her family didn’t know they were handing me a key. But they were, back to camping back to the idea that my happiness still counts and I'm forever grateful.
I’m not ten anymore. I don’t have him here to shake me awake. But I have this light. And for the first time in a long time, I think I want to keep getting up for it.
You don’t have to carry it all alone anymore I gave God some but not everything I was carrying.
The Road Holds It
Packing up and leaving felt different than I thought it would. Less like leaving, more like being let go.
I told Dyla goodbye Sunday evening because they were leaving Tuesday, her brother loaded the last of the bags. “Thanks for bringing me,” I said, and she just nodded like it was nothing. But it wasn’t nothing to me. It was twenty-seven years.
Her mom and nephew got into the van, and I hitched a ride with them. No plan, just heading home. We passed through Valencia, drop her mom off, that kind of ease you forget exists when you live by schedule and obligation.
The drive back was quiet. Not empty quiet — the full kind.
Music low from the radio. Small talk about family etc. It was dark out as we left Toco around 5:30pm the cool AC and the only thought in my head is how good that time felt. I talked a little with everyone, Dyla’s mom talked about how the sea was calm this weekend she enjoyed herself etc. We dropped her mom off and headed to drop me home.
I watched the landscape change. Forest to villages to traffic lights. Back to the life of responsibilities waiting at home "oh the dread!"
But it didn’t feel as heavy.
Because for the first time in years, I’d chosen something for me. I’d said yes to Toco. Yes to Dyla’s family. Yes to that sunrise that felt like my dad standing beside me again.
The van rolled into San Juan about 8pm with the music still playing. I thanked them said goodnight, stepped onto the pavement grabbed my bags, and felt the sand still in my slippers. I was home, my mom didn't know I was coming back that night my sister in law knew, it was a surprise.
So the hidden truth was, I had buried myself when he died. I know that now. But Toco dug me back up. Dyla’s family handed me the shovel. And that quiet ride home, with the music and the kindness of strangers who didn’t stay strangers — that was me learning how to walk again.
I don’t know when the next camping trip will be. But I know I’ll say yes.
By Khadene Lalla
