~ Where it all began ~
At the ripe age of 16, I lived a few doors down from a delightful 90-year-old Czechoslovakian woman named Mrs Fleischner. She was an artist, had traveled the world, had two children with her husband, and moved to the USA to escape the horrors of the holocaust. By the time she and I had met, her American dream had slowed to a crawl, and she needed just a little extra help around her home. I was happy to walk down, have some tea in fancy tea cups, and listen to Mrs. F tell me the stories from her past. She painted beautifully and tried to teach me, which we both found out, rather painfully, that I have no natural talent with a paintbrush!
Of all Mrs. F’s visitors, my favorite was always when her sister would come to visit! I was both intrigued and horrified at the stories I had read about the Nazi concentration camps, but I never imagined I would meet a survivor! I could listen to her talk for hours.
Each year, around Spring, Mrs. F would begin making plans and packing her large-brimmed sun hat for their annual family vacation to an island that I believed only existed in my dreams. A small island in Southwest Florida named Sanibel Island. She would pull out her beautiful shell collection and tell me that these shells just washed up whole on the shore every day. There were piles of shells like I had never seen before! For two whole weeks, I would water her plants, tend her house, and ache for her to come home and show me the new shells she had picked up that year! I knew that one day I had to go there and see this place for myself.
My friendship with Mrs. Fleischner came to a tear-filled end when she needed more care than I could give her, and she moved to live with her daughter in Chicago. She and I exchanged letters for quite a while, and then one day, I got the news that she had died, quietly in her sleep one night. I still miss that kind, tiny woman with her beautiful accent, who would luxuriously roll her r’s at just the right places.
Four years after I first met Mrs. F, I had my chance to go to Sanibel. It was for one glorious sun and shell-filled day. The instant my feet landed on the beach there, I knew my soul had found its home. My trips there have been nothing short of amazing, and each time I go, it feels like going home. Sometimes, as I wander the beaches at sunset, I catch a glimpse of my beautiful friend, with her giant large large-brimmed sun hat, and it makes me smile.
