Pamlico Breeze

Jeff has X ray vision.  When he first came to our house, he saw the sag in the brick that had come from repeated freeze thaw cycles without adequate drainage.   He worried about the lint in the dryer exhaust that could be a fire hazard.  His eyes gazed at problems and sought solutions.   He has been able to preserve the earnestness and curiosity of youth and balance that with the experience of adulthood. 

Now Jeff lays dying.  After a happiest moment when his daughter married our son Ben, Jeff felt a sharp pain in his belly.    A sore as well as intermittent stabbing discomfort felt more like a pulled muscle.  He is a diagnostician.  He wondered:  what can cause left upper quadrant abdominal pain?  He can rebuild brakes of fancy German import cars and build stout homes that many covet.  He is a successful and a trusted builder.  He is patient with his clients and fair with his contractors.  Most have worked with him for decades.  So as an optimist he went to the ER to find a ready solution.

I cannot imagine what Jeff felt when they told him that he had a mass.  Pancreatic.  His family members had pancreatic cancer.   I am sure he is thinking removal, chemotherapy and then cure.   He is too happy to have cancer!  He is too vigorous to be sick!

He lives in Charlottesville where UVa had targeted pancreatic cancer.  The Emily Couric Clinical Cancer Center is full of world class oncologists and compassionate and dedicated personnel.  After surgery with Dr. Reid,  Jeff was up within hours.  He tried to break the record for the most laps walked in the post-surgical unit.  He was looking forward to chemotherapy.  He became a nutritionist to build up his reserves.  He read voraciously on the web, scores of studies and trial data.  He became a lay expert.

We met Jeff and Teri almost five years ago when Ben introduced us to his future bride, Megan a.k.a Moose.   She is as beautiful as she is charming and also a snow board instructor.  Having finished two degrees at Virginia Tech, she is a brain.  They are happy in love and always running around, participating in races, hikes and climbs.  For their honeymoon, they went to the mountains of Switzerland.  They went dog sledding and fell in love with the canines.  They kayaked in the cold lakes and schussed down the Alps.  They are always looking for each other and smiling.

Now Ben and Megan are facing pancreatic cancer together in a most cherished father.  It is a double black diamond out of bounds skiing with rocks and crevasse on each side.  The weather is frigid and bleak and there is no ski patrol to bail them out.  After a month of marriage, they are facing the loss of the pillar of Moose’s family.  Jeff is the rock of Gibraltar and has always been there for them.  How can they help Jeff?

Jeff is a waterman.  Growing up in Virginia Beach and raising a family in Avon and Hatteras has made his veins salty.  He loves the water and all things nautical.  His dream is to go cruising in the Caribbean with his wife Teri.   He is a power boater and often fished the Gulf stream with a single engine outboard on a small runabout.   Running Hatteras inlet was local knowledge to Jeff.   He still has the same boat and engine now stored on Afton mountain.  The road to his home on Afton Mountain is Avon road.  The calling port of his sailing boat, Pamlico Breeze, is Hatteras, North Carolina.

They moved from North Carolina as their precocious son Aaron needed higher education.  Jeff has made his family a priority and was not afraid to establish new roots.  From the coastal waters of Avon, he moved to Afton Mountain, Charlottesville.   Aaron and Megan thrived in the schools of Albemarle County and went on to Virginia Tech.  Ben met Moose their senior year and fell in love.  Our lives will forever be intwined in that simple desire to further kid education.

Three years ago, Jeff and Teri spent a weekend aboard Enchantress.  This was our first real meeting.  We were anchoring out in Fishing Bay.   We were trapped together so it would be either glorious or disastrous.  Megan and Ben were  our buffers.   Who goes sailing for a weekend with possible future in laws ?

The winds were fair, and the air caressed the young couple as they paddle boarded around Fishing Bay Harbor.  Joan, Jeff, Teri and I could only bask in the loving atmosphere that Ben and Moose created.   As we enjoyed an enchanted sunset, night fell, and we were gently swayed to sleep with a future so promising and magical.   Our children were in love.  We were gaining a brother and sister in Jeff and Teri, as well as a new daughter.

The sail back to Deltaville the next morning was brisk.  There is always wind coming off the Piankatank river.   Enchantress, powered by a stiff breeze, heeled.   Her chines bit into the Chesapeake waters.  She powered up and planed as her main and jib worked in unison.   Jeff’s smile is infectious as he grinned from ear to ear.   We can see his eyes twinkling as his face told us: “Hey I want to do this too !  Let’s go sailing!”   The wind was predictably on our nose and Enchantress tacked back and forth so that the dinner dishes made cacophony below, but there was order in the cockpit as we sought the shelter of Broad creek, home.

So, started a love affair with sailing and with Jeff and Teri.  We would sail around DELMARVA in one year and meet each other at Urbana two years later.  Jeff was the captain of his own vessel, Pamlico Breeze, and we followed  on Enchantress.    Jeff did not let cancer dictate his options.  He went on with life, learned to sail and commissioned a brand-new boat.   He sought the best treatment while living to the fullest.   He was an example for us all, "boats against the current” to seek the adventure beyond the green light of Daisy’s dock across the river.

His goal was to live as long as possible and be with his family.  When we decided to go around DELMARVA in July, he took his chemotherapy on board and was getting treatment as we rounded Cape Charles and then North to Cape May.  The Atlantic swells did not deter the nausea of chemotherapy.  He took the night watch as any other crew member, except underneath his foulies was an iv-pump chirping all night long with his medication.  How many people receive their chemotherapy while sailing overnight in the Atlantic Ocean ?

Before the trip...

...after

Facing a shortened life, he choose to expand his time by pursing his life’s dreams.   I thought he was  ambitious when he bought his boat, the first Jeanneau 51 in the lower Chesapeake Bay, Pamlico Breeze.  He installed an ICW friendly mast and long range Wi-Fi equipment to connect to the outside world.  A server with thousands of movies went below as well as a washer and dryer.  Teri made the stateroom home, and Jeff’s smile was solar energy to fuel his expedition.  I realize now that he was wise.   Jeff was simply living.

Even a punishing storm off the North bank of the Potomac did not dampen his quest to sail.  We were outrunning the typical summer thunderstorm but this one was fueled by the outgoing South Potomac river flow and the surging Northbound Bay flood tide.  A white squall enveloped us and there was water coming down the step mast fitting below.  We were basically pummeled.  Minutes seems like hours but we had singular focus and Enchantress took us safely to Smith Point. 

A warm sun greeted us a few hours later, and we were none the worse for the wear.  Jeff and Teri were smiling  as they shed their rain gear for shorts.  Is not life grand when we go through adversity with friends and family and come out on top?  We are humbled by nature's forces but also awed by human resilience and courage.  “Success is counted sweetest by those who near succeed.”  We were feeling not like Amherst spinsters but more like the jubilant Volvo Ocean racers featured in SpinSheet magazine.

For Jeff is the ultimate problem solver and relishes challenges.  He is not afraid to change and to experiment. He takes apart engines and puts them together.  He does not blindly follow expert advice but rather becomes an expert himself.  He puts the experience in expertise.

photo by Teri Goldberg

He is so charmed by life that sometimes he is bursting at the seams!  His enthusiasm is infectious.  I am now measuring my coffee at exactly 195 F.  He sends me a drain for the kitchen, and I am trying to be a house plumber rather than a heart plumber.  Jeff enriches our lives by creating solutions.  He has hope for the future.  Life can be better. Problems can be solved.  This is Jeff’s nature, to find solutions to our pressing problems.  Jeff give us hope and makes our lives better!

This past week, our hearts are heavy as Jeff is dying.  We knew that this time would come, but we refuse to believe in it.  We could not assuage it.  Even when he had lost tremendous weight and his skin turned brilliant yellow, his mind so active and alive made up for his physical decline.  He was still Jeff with his deep blue eyes that gazed at us with a genuine earnestness.

Now Jeff lays mostly asleep.  He is surround by his loving family.  His body’s betrayal has not diminished his aura.  He is at home in the house that he built.  He is with Teri and Aaron and Megan and Ben.  He would have it no other way but to be with his family.  He told me that he would live longer in sickness to be with his family than sail a short time in the Caribbean with relative health.  He would endure chemotherapy and its pitfalls to borrow time…

You who are most alive had to first make the journey.   All of us have to make this trip home one day.  I am glad you will be smiling at us from the distant lee shore.  Like the breezes of the Pamlico sound, we are enlivened when we feel change and movement.  Jeff’s vision is life and so we will try to keep our hearts filled with love and our eyes open to new adventures.

photo by A Goldberg

  

We need Jeff’s X ray vision to navigate our future.   We cannot imagine a future without Jeff but that time is fast approaching.  So Jeff, I am writing out of deep sorrow.  I want to express my admiration for your courage. I want to thank you for your example.  I am writing to send you love and peace.  I am sad for us who are left behind.  We are impoverished because you are not with us.  So we beat on...   

photo by Jeff Goldberg, Pamlico Breeze on Pamlico Sound

My Heart Leaps Up

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

--William Wordsworth

Jeff passed March 7^th surround by his family on Afton Mountain, Signal Road, off Avon road just one year short after his diagnosis.   Jeff wished that we support pancreatic cancer research at UVA Health System's Cancer Center.  Donation in honor of Jeff can be made with the link:

http://get-involved.uvahealth.com/goto/JeffGoldberg

Springing Forward with Teddy !

Teddy climbs.  He is on the chair.  He is on the table.  He is on Waverly's back.  His little hands, little fingers pick berries from Cherrios.   He eats and sorts his food objects like a professor.  He is now 18 months old.  He has a personality.  He is engaged in life.  He is spending the weekend  with us !

For her fifth season, Enchantress 's first trip  starts with a blue sky and a warm day.  The water is cold 46 and the air temp is 76.  There is a breeze and a Force 5 wind, exactly on the nose.  We are with Jeff and Terri who bravely come from Charlottesville to sail  the Rappahannock's  waters.

 

We are at high tide but the North Wind has pushed the water out of  the creek.  We have 1/2 feet under the keel.  We do not step up but walk across the dock to the deck.  Waverly likes it. Teddy likes it.  I am trying to remember if I paid Tow Boat US 's fee this year. 

We motor out to  Broad creek with the new BC WR (Broad Creek wreck marker) to starboard.   We hit the bottom!  We are  on the right side of channel.  We drag for a few feet and then turn sharply into the mid channel.  The winter storms have created a new obstacle !  The water is so clear that the edges are demarcated.  I only had to look ahead but I was staring at the chart plotter.   A novice egghead mistake. 

Looking ahead, the water is so clear that I imagine we are seeing the Bay of John Smith.  Several hundred years ago, the underwater grass was like carpet to the oyster beds.  Now there is only mud.  Today it is clear mud.

Jeff is a natural and he points us North.  He loves life and his smile is infectious.  In fact, he smiles all the time!  He has been a Hobie sailor from North Carolina and has a great plan to retire and sail to the Caribbean.  He has never sent his car to a mechanic but has fixed and upgraded all of his vehicles.  He is now fixing high end BMWs and Audi s in his spare time.   He has all the attributes of a Cruiser.  He has mechanical wisdom, practical know how, but is a romantic, smitten by beautiful sunsets and people. 

Terri is his perfect complement.  She gazes across the Bay and then the River, somewhat cold but game to Jeff's plans.  After 29 years of marriage, they are like teenagers in love.  They are teenagers in love. Waverly would rather follow Jeff.   Teddy is charmed.    

Enchantress is below the bridge and the winds pick up to 20 knots apparent.  The tacks are more violent but she is responsive and turns thru the wind without a fuss.  We are more reefed than we need to be but we have Teddy and Waverly.  Rather, we have a gameful Teddy and surefooted Waverly  We are nervous grandparents responsible for  Teddy.   We are more cautious.  We, however, like Oreos and milk and subject Teddy to some new sugar highs.

"the VHF is non-operational"

Still, we see few boats on the first weekend of Spring.  Certainly no other sailboats are tacking upwind with a toddler and a large dog.   I admire  young families with children cruising  and living their dream.  They are crazy brave and resilient ! Childcare is constant.  Sailing is a jealous mistress.

We approach the Irvington bridge and decide to motor sail.  The people above are hurrying to their destinations.  We are lazily taking in the day and have to make the Bridge Marina fore 5 pm.  We are the same people but worlds apart.  Our time sense is defined by wind and waves and hunger. 

The Corrotoman  river greets us with gentle wind.  Enchantress glides along and she is now playful.   Each turn of the wheel  is a caress and  a gentle response.  She is symbiotic, part of us,  rather than a vessel.  Her batteries are however groaning and we have to use manual winches.  The E90 display shuts down.  We power up the generator to see where are headed.  The North end of Urbanna Creek has shoaled in the past, and we realign to the Southern border.  I still have not found my Boat US card but our VHF works.  We are in fine form.

Jeff takes us into Urbanna  Creek where Spring has awakened the marinas on both sides.  Mr. and Mrs.  Mullins has transformed the venerable Bridge Marina.  She is a sparking gem.  Mr. Mullins with a helpful hand and warm smile greets us.  Under his grandson watchful eye, Mr. Mullins pull Enchantress into her slip.  We feel like we just crossed an ocean but we have just come up river.

Waverly bounds along and enjoys every smell.  The Bridge marina's lounge and showers are like the Jefferson hotel.  There is coffee in the morning and DOGNUTS !  The hospitality is Southern charm and the people are kind and also interesting.  We are  next to Gordon Lightfoot's old boat.  We feel like we are in royal company.

We walk to Something Different, and Teddy decorates the floor.  The home made ice cream and chocolate cashew cake is simply stupendous.  We retire early and Teddy watches trailers of Trolls.  I pass out.   Joan rocks him to sleep and we awake nine hours later to brilliant clouds.   We had all slept like Trolls drunk with life. 

So often in life, we measure time by the clock.  We should mark the passage of time by events.  Our time sense is rich when we fill our time with loving people and meaningful  passages.  A journey up river with Terri, Jeff and Waverly, Joan and Teddy seems like a  joyful ten year voyage rather than a weekend trip.  Unexpected problems and how we solve them define our character.  Having laughter and love and sharing common experiences grows love.  We all have a kernel of common memory but we all have different interpretations of the same life.

I am in love with Joan, Terri, Jeff, Waverly and Teddy.   We climb on each other backs and into each others' hearts.  We all have had a very difficult winter.  We have many challenges ahead.  Not all paths are filled with sunny days with gentle zephyrs.   Yet we cannot paralyze ourselves with potential bad outcomes.  We cannot live in a fantasy world where everything is rosy.   We only can wish for people who are loving and kind that we can all cultivate and cherish.  We hope for a stable world not filled with capricious happenings.  We do not want foul weather but steady winds.  Yet if bad weather comes, I wish you all are lucky enough to have friends and family that love and cherish each other.    We have each others hearts and backs.  We are crew together.  We endure the storms together.

Sailing with Teddy

Teddy smiles.     His eyes see the world afresh and he is learning each moment.  Teddy's  gaze is totally engaging.  He demands your attention.  I am making goo goo sounds at him and  odd gastrointestinal sounds  come out of  my mouth. Teddy's  total body laughs.  He dances joyfully.

Teddy is few days older than nine months today.   He is more out of his mothers' womb than in it.  He is our first  grandchild.  He is a sailor and a reluctant wearer of lifejackets but we are learning together to find the best match.  Teddy brings out the best in Joan and I and also there is a camaraderie that is very different from being a parent.

Grand parenting is simply more fun than parenting.   I feel a sense of mischief and have more of a sense of play.  We are playing with Teddy as he learns how to make sense of the world.  I am learning with him and see the world afresh.  The spoon is a cool drum stick.  The floor is not just a surface to walk on but a moonscape.  It is filled with wonders and items of discovery.

Teddy s first sailing adventure was to the Urbanna Oyster festival.  He was just a few months old.  He seems to sleep a lot.   His parents are dotting loving and capable parents.  Their dictum is law and although we have raised five children, what they say about Teddy goes !   They follow more rules and regulations that we were encumbered with.  Or at least my mind remembers it that way.   Our kids were raised in the caldron of residency and training, and Joan did the lions' share of childcare.  So Teddy is allowed only formula and he is sticking to a strict food agenda outlined by his pediatrician.   He is allowed only bottled water for now and he is growing and thriving.

Teddy's sailing trip started on a  beautiful fall day in November.  Copper, Teddy's' irascible beagle, made himself perfectly at home on Enchantress.  He bounded corner to corner and left his fragments of fur behind.  When I encounter them, weeks, months later, they are little love notes left to chronicle a good time. 

Waverly and Copper are good companions and they are no longer the prime objects of mite affections.  Teddy settles into his car seat, and Enchantress leaves the docks for a short trip upriver to Urbanna.   The winds are gentle and to the Northeast but build rather abruptly as we leave Broad Creek.  The river waves are sharp and Enchantress shoulders them with a soft shudder.   We are close hauling up river as the winds build.  Enchantress heels onto her chine and grooves in.   The day is exhilarating in its freshness.  There is a briskness to the fall air.  Teddy's' first sail boat ride, Copper's first sailing outing, and our first grandchild with us on a great adventure !  These are indelible memories.

As we near Topping,  the great expanse of the Robert Norris bridge acts as a wind funnel.  The winds build to over 25 knots and begin to gust to 30.   The water grows white beards and a humming resonates from the rigging.   We are prudent to reef and finally motor sail.   We do not want Teddy's first trip to develop into a teeth clenching rail to water tacking with the sails snapping fiasco.   Enchantress gives up her sails and she becomes a motor ship, bobbing toward Urbanna.

We gaze out past Carter's Creek entrance, and there is a romantic couple on a lovely small Catalina sailing to Urbana with no jib.  He is standing in the cockpit with the tiller in hand, hair awash with wind, jaunty leg on the cockpit seat, no autopilot to diffuse his adventure.   His  love  interest is seated just forward of the cabin entrance.  Her gaze is towards her captain and they are freezing time with this moment, tacking up river, sails out.   Enchantress passes them in surrender, motoring.

Teddy does not seem to mind that we are motoring and he is a happy baby, smiling  and cocooned against the elements.  I think of all the babies that have gone West or were born to explorers.  I think of Virginia Dare.  For babies, each day is a discovery.  They just do not have to pay a college tuition to make the VCU slogan their own.

We see the Lynx, a privateer schooner, visiting Urbanna for the festival.  She is wearing only her  bikini sails on this blustery day.  She has some brave souls out with her trained crew and the Urbanna guests are enjoying the broiling river.

All too soon, the upriver journey ends and we are docking at Bridge Marina.  The owners have just built cool floating docks and have a new guest house.  They are lovely people and the dock master is efficient and knowledgeable.  We come stern to the floating docks and Enchantress lowers her transom to allow easy egress.  Kelly IV is also visiting and she as a lovely sight to see with her proud Bertram lines and happy occupants celebrating Fall.

We see the sunset with friends and friend of friends.    Teddy seems to take it all in with a twinkle in his eye.   His world is his parents and Copper and the caregivers around him.  He feels what we feel.  He can tell when we are happy and sad.  His smile is infectious.  Teddy lives moment to moment with the eternity of the future compressed in the present.   He has minimal worries and has a short memory.  Or at least, I think he does.  The windy passage is now but a few neurotransmitter molecules in his hippocampus.  He is looking towards the future.

Our children are our greatest  treasures, and grand parenting is the  icing on the cake.   Until Teddy was born and gazed his countenance upon us, I could not have even guessed at this sweet joy.   Sailing with Teddy and Mark and Abbie and Copper hopefully will be like driving to the local food market.  Commonplace but so important for the sustenance of our minds and bodies.  This memory and hope I hold onto in these troubling times.

Teddy's eyes implore us to make each day fresh and important and joyful.  Attend to those body needs but come back to laughter and kindness.   There is fun and learning even in the most mundane of tasks.  We do not need to sail to understand this lesson.  We just have to open our eyes and our hearts.