Beached Wheelchair

  The first time I went to the beach I learned that sand is the bane of a wheelchair person's attempts to have fun. When I was thirteen I went with my church on a teen girl's retreat. We went to our local beach and stayed in a condo for the weekend. The next morning my friends and I got up, put on our swimsuits and headed down to the beach. There was a ramp path that led down to the sand bar, but as soon as it ended...

"Uh-oh, I don't think your wheelchair is going to move through this sand," my friend said, as she attempted to push me. 

"Try turning the wheelchair around and pulling it backwards," I suggested. No luck. 

  It was still quite a walk to get out to where the water was. I was barely able to walk at the time, but I got tired easily and my back hurt more as my scoliosis was still progressing. 

"I have an idea," one of my friends said, and unfolded her towel. "Get on and I'll drag you to the water and that will make your wheelchair lighter to bring along."

  I sat on the towel. We put our other supplies in the seat of my wheelchair and my friends drug me to the beach, with one of them pulling my wheelchair behind us. We got close to the water. I got off of the towel and we spread it out next to the wheelchair. I took our supplies out of my chair and set it on the towel. My friends went into the water.

"Need help?" one of them asked, upon seeing me pull my wheelchair closer to the water's edge. 

"No thanks, I'm just gonna stay up here and get my feet wet," I smiled. 

  I never intended to get into the water. I knew from school, movies and just by seeing, that the current and waves were too strong for my fragile body to endure. I still wanted to feel the spray and the cold biting at my toes, so I parked myself where I thought the incoming tide was lowest and enjoyed watching my friends play as the water came rushing up and splashed against my feet, then receded back into the ocean. 

  It was so peaceful and exciting all at the same time. The day was bright and sunny; hot, but with the strong breeze and the salty waves splashing against my feet, the weather was perfect. I loved watching the waves roll in and catch my friends off guard. They'd all lamented about not having surfboards, but our youth leader was too concerned with safety. I listened to seagulls and saw a few of them flying high over us. 

  The sound of the ocean and the birds reminded me that I also wanted to collect seashells. I was particularly eager to find a conch-shell; I wondered if I really would be able to hear the ocean long after we'd left. I got out of my wheelchair and sat beside it. I began digging in the sand. I found lots of cockles and coquinas, a few ladder horn snails and what I thought was part of a sand dollar. I had a couple of moon snail shells and was working on getting what I hoped would be an oyster, when I heard one of my friends screaming at me.

"Get back! Get back!"

  I looked up just in time to see a huge wave barrel toward me. I say huge, but it probably wasn't taller than if I'd been standing. Still, it could have been ten feet tall for all of the force that came with it. I tried to back up, but bumped into my wheelchair. The wave hit me first, knocking me back hard. I narrowly missed hitting my head on the wheelchair's frame. 

  Instead, I went under the wheelchair. I felt the pull of the tide and was helpless as it quickly drug me and the wheelchair back with it into the ocean. Another reason I had decided not to get into the water was my inability to swim. No matter how hard I'd tried to learn in a calm pool, I was as buoyant as a rock. Now I was being drug along the bottom of the tide. I could feel my arms and legs scrape against the sand and rocks. Small seashells and other plants tore into my skin as the current pulled me along. I had no sense of where I was or what was happening. 

  At one point, I saw my wheelchair tire and I tried desperately to grab it, but it was yanked out of my reach and I did the last thing I could think of and reached up. I thought the current responded somehow and pulled me toward the surface. I felt myself being drug out of the water against the will of the tide. My head was spinning. When I was able to focus, my friends were kneeling over me, my wheelchair beside them. 

"Are you okay?" they asked, concerned. "You could have died." 

  Then one of them said, "Did your life flash before your eyes?"

"Were there choirs of angels?"

"Did you see God?" another asked.

  They looked at me expectantly to which I replied,

"No, I only saw my wheelchair."