The kids chipped in for Mom and Dad’s 30th anniversary gift: a couple weeks in Cancun. They agreed it was the least they could do after 18 years of training to be adults; besides, a short reprieve from a North Dakota winter to sun-bake like a clam on a Caribbean beach never hurt anyone.
The parents packed their sun stuff, being careful not to forget the Riviera Maya essentials: snorkels (check), fins (check), sunscreen and aloe vera (check, check)—lots of the latter two to protect flesh that hadn't felt much sunshine over the past four months. She called the kids and thanked them again, then took a bath; he shoveled a pathway out to the garage—soon this white shit will be sand!—and loaded up the Chevy for the drive to Grand Forks International airport, and their snowbird tickets outta here!
There is something rejuvenating about the sea, and romantic. Mom and Dad felt like newlyweds again as they stripped down to mostly skin, and laughed and splashed along the shoreline, and swam with the fishes, and did what they did during their honeymoon in Chicago.
Their aches and pains and worries and concerns drifted away in turquoise waves. They drank and ate and relaxed and enjoyed the quiet, introspective moments of watching the setting sun melt into yellows and oranges on the liquid horizon, and recommitted to each other “til death, do we part.”
Time in Paradise accelerates: before you even get settled in the beach lounge, it’s back to reality it seems, and the reverse plane ride back to where the grass ain’t greener. To stay here would be Heaven.
When their parents didn’t call after their due date home, the kids became worried and went to check on them. The autopsies concluded that Dad had frozen to death after suffering a stroke in his path-making workout; Mom had slipped in the tub, was knocked unconscious, and had drowned. Their second honeymoon lives on.
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