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The shipwreck Christmas

By
Bob Markwalter

I was 17 the year of our "Shipwrecked Christmas," that age when childhood is over and adulthood is still a distant glimmer. I was as difficult and unpleasant as most teenagers are. My parents were hopelessly and embarrassingly old-fashioned, my younger brother and sister were painful bothers, and family outings were a combination of humiliation and torture. My only goals in life involved girls and cars, usually in association. In this frame of mind, I was looking forward to our annual "Christmas Eve Sail" with the enthusiasm I might have mustered for my execution.

It was 1956 and we were living in Beaufort, South Carolina. Dad was a shrimper and mother taught school. My sister, Rose, was 12 and my brother, Jimmy, 9. We had been taking the Christmas Eve Sail in our 35-foot ketch, the Heather (Mother's name), for as long as I could remember. We would leave the docks about noon, sail north until we could just see the lighthouse on Tennendale Island, and return home for dinner. Mother always referred to it as "family time."

I had always enjoyed the sail. I remember how proud I was the first time Dad let me take the helm for it. But this year I sulked, balked, and sneered. Dad started to reprimand me several times, but Mother laid a hand on his arm and he just shook his head.

This was in the days before GPS, and radar was still uncommon. Weather forecasts weren't terribly accurate and sudden squalls were not uncommon. But we weren't too far out to sea during the sail and the weather in late December is still fairly mild and reliable that far south. So the sudden deep swells, wind, and rain caught even Dad by surprise.

He handled the boat beautifully, and Mother and I pitched in to help him. But as the weather began to lift we saw the beam of the Tennendale Light, and we were practically on top of it. Mother gasped, and I could see that Dad was searching the rapidly approaching beach for a spot to run the Heather aground. He found it, and a few agonizing seconds later we were beached.

Rose had a bump on her head and Jimmy said his shoulder hurt, but the rest of us were fine. The Heather was not. Dad had missed the rocks that might have sunk us in the treacherous surf, but he had hit something and the Heather had a good-sized hole in her bow. We weren't going to sail her home that day.

Mother looked at the jagged hole in the boat and said, "It could have been worse, much worse. You were wonderful at the helm, Bill, and you were just great too, Thomas. I'm so proud of you both."

With that, she hugged me and gave me a big kiss. As she did the same for Dad, I looked around to be sure there weren't any fellow teenagers about to see such embarrassment. I was getting over my fright and back into my "misunderstood" mode. But I didn't have to worry about anyone being around. Tennendale Island looked devoid of practically anything.

It was still raining and windy. Visibility was maybe a quarter of a mile. Before Dad said it, I knew we weren't going to be at home this Christmas; he was not about to use the Heather's radio to have someone put to sea in this weather. He would call to say we were safe, and ask someone to come when conditions improved.

Rose took the news with a wail, and Jimmy was almost as stricken.

"Will Santa be able to find us?" he asked.

"I don't know," Mother told him. "I doubt it. But he'll leave your presents under our tree at home. And the important thing is that we are all safe, and together. We'll make this a wonderful Christmas."

Dad seemed to have his doubts, but he said only, "Better get up to the Light Station. Gunnison probably doesn't know we're here."

Patrick Gunnison was the lighthouse keeper. The light was electrified by 1956, of course, but Gunnison tended the electric generator on the island, kept things clean, and kept to himself. I knew he was a widower, probably about 70 years old, and was kept on because he had lived for years in the keeper's cottage at the base of the light. I had heard Dad say that Gunnison wasn't the friendliest sort and wondered if we would receive a warm welcome. I imagined spending the night in a bleak cottage, thought of our tree and all the lights at home, and felt sorrier for myself than I normally did.

Dusk was beginning to fall as we walked up a little hill from the beach and the cottage came into view. It was decorated for Christmas, with lights everywhere. It seemed every bush and scrubby tree in sight was festooned with lights.

Dad looked, shook his head, and muttered, "Gone round the bend, he has."

"Hush," Mother told him.

Dad knocked on the door as the rest of us gazed at all the lights. The door opened a crack and a pair of eyes surveyed us. Then the door opened and Pat Gunnison said, "What brings you here, Jordan? And on Christmas Eve. Come on, come on, get in out of the rain."

We filed into the cottage and were met by more lights. There was a huge tree covered with lights and ornaments, smaller trees on tables and shelves, and a fire dancing in the fireplace. Rose and Jimmy were standing with their mouths open until Jimmy gulped and said, "Wow!"

Rose seconded him and Dad explained to Gunnison what had happened. Gunnison nodded and said, "Can't expect anyone to come out here tonight when you all are safe and the weather is rotten. I've got two spare rooms and a couch, plenty of blankets, and lots of food. It's plain fare for Christmas, but it's food."

Mother was soon organizing hot baths for Jimmy and Rose, Dad and I went to secure the boat and get what few supplies we had there, and Gunnison stoked the fire. The rain had stopped but the air was taking on a chill and the fireplace seemed bright, cheery, and very warm. Just before darkness fell, Patrick Gunnison shrugged on his pea coat and said, "I have to run a small errand. Be right back."

I watched from the window as he strode down a path that led to something enclosed in a small patch of picket fence. Behind me, Dad said, "His wife's grave. They say he goes there every evening to say goodnight to her."

Mother went to the kitchen and began to rummage for pots, pans, and food. She had something on the stove by the time Gunnison returned. He started to shrug of his coat, but saw Mother in the kitchen and stood with one arm still in the coat. "Missus?" he said.

Mother looked up at his stare, then down at the pots on the stove. She said, "Oh, Mr. Gunnison, I'm so sorry. I didn't think."

"It's ... all right," he said. "It's just sort of strange. My Eloise was the only woman I ever saw using the kitchen."

"You must miss her terribly," Mother said.

"There were just the two of us," he said, still standing with one arm in his coat. "We were alone here. But we never minded. We had each other."

"You never had children?" asked Mother.

"No," he answered. "And then she was gone. It's been twenty-five years, but every Christmas I decorate the house, like she did. She likes that, I know."

Gunnison finished taking off his coat, hung it on a peg in the wall, and went to the kitchen. He stood for a moment in the door then said, "It's good to have a lady in this place again, Missus. Can I help?"

"Call me Heather," Mother told him. "And yes, you can. Do you have another medium-sized pan, like this one?"

Gunnison produced pans, spoons, knives, and spices and the house soon was smelling like our house would smell at Christmastime. He moved some of the decorations from a table in the single room that doubled for living and dining quarters and Rose and Jimmy began to set out plates and silverware. Dad used Gunnison's radio to let one of his friends know we were all right and arrange for a boat the next day if the weather kept improving.

I stood by a window looking at the picket fence where Gunnison's wife was buried as the fence disappeared into the night, thinking about Patrick Gunnison and his wife. I decided she must have been just about Mother's age when she died. I wondered what she died of. I wondered what she had been like. I wondered what it was like to live alone on a tiny island.

"Penny for your thoughts," I heard Mother say.

I turned, embarrassed, and shrugged. She patted my shoulder and said, "Are you hungry?"

I was. We all were. And dinner was delicious. Mother had worked wonders with the keeper's simple stores and what we had in the boat. We ate, Patrick Gunnison told stories about living on the island, and we talked and laughed. I talked and laughed, too. Dad looked at Mother and raised his eyebrows. She smiled at him then turned to me with a look I had never seen, like she was possessed of some vast wisdom.

We took turns doing the dishes in the little kitchen and sat by the fire and talked some more until Jimmy began to yawn.

"I think it's bedtime," said Mother.

"Will Santa come?" he asked.

"Oh, Jimmy, I don't think so," Mother said. "Remember, he'll leave your presents under our tree at home."

Everyone was soon tucked into bed, but I couldn't sleep. Sometime around midnight I got up and went to stand by the window to look out into the night. The sky had cleared and moonlight flooded the island. I looked at the little picket fence and saw two people standing by it, hand-in-hand. I looked at the peg by the door. Patrick Gunnison's pea coat was gone.

I sensed someone behind me and heard Mother say, "They must have loved each other very much."

"But ..."

"I don't know, Thomas. Sometimes, we have to accept the things we see. But I do know that this season is about love and family, and we've certainly had that here tonight."

I turned and hugged my mother tightly and she hugged me. She patted me on the head, tousled my hair the way she did when she was proud of me.

Later, in my bed, I heard Patrick Gunnison come into the cottage. I was thinking about him and his Eloise and what Mother had said. When I finally fell asleep I knew something I could not put into words until years later: childhood was behind me and I was starting the work of becoming an adult. I did not know it, but the work would last a lifetime. I was still very interested in girls and cars for some years, and maturity was not something I stepped into immediately. But I knew there was something I was to become, and I knew there were things in the world that would be forever beyond my understanding.

Jimmy was up early the next morning. He woke me yelling, "Santa! Santa did come! Mom! Dad! Santa!"

I stumbled out of my bedroom to see Jimmy holding a toy truck in the air. There were toys everywhere under the big Christmas tree - dolls, cars, trucks, a baby carriage, doll dresses, hats, baseball gloves, and much more. I rubbed my eyes and looked again. Santa? Then something struck me: it was all oddly old, almost antique.

Mother looked at Patrick Gunnison. He smiled at her. Later, in the kitchen, I heard him tell her, "We never had children, but Santa kept thinking we would. Those things have just been lying around here, and Christmas morning is so special for the children." Mother hugged him.

There were things for me, too. There was a baseball. I looked at it and saw a signature: "Babe Ruth, 1927." Patrick Gunnison smiled at me and said, "I used to get off the island now and again."

Then he handed me a little pin, about an inch long and half as wide. It had a lighthouse emblazoned on it. He told me, "This is my Lighthouse Service emblem. I wore it on my collar. I'd like you to have it."

I could say nothing. I looked at him and smiled. He pinned the little emblem to my shirt collar.

Mother fixed a breakfast that left us all stuffed and lazy. The weather had improved, but Dad called his friend and told him to stay home with his family. We would go home the next day.

We saw Patrick Gunnison often after that, and every Christmas Eve we would sail the Heather to Tennendale Island to have Christmas with him. Then one year, Patrick was not there. We had buried him in July in the little plot surrounded by the picket fence, next to his Eloise. But we had Christmas in the keeper's cottage. Dad had a friend in the Coast Guard who arranged it.

We went back year after year. Jimmy and Rose grew up and moved away from South Carolina, but my children joined us. And one year Dad was not there, then Mother. Now my grandchildren have Christmas in the keeper's cottage and hear the story of the Heather and Patrick Gunnison and how Santa found us on a tiny island.

I bought Tennendale Island from the government a few years ago, so the Heather will, I hope, continue to sail to the light for many years. I have never again seen Patrick and Eloise by the picket fence. Perhaps I imagined it, and Mother did, too. Perhaps they were walking on the beach when I was looking for them by the picket fence. Maybe they walk together now on islands and beaches that are beyond my knowing.

But I think of them when I reach across the table to take my wife's hand, or hug my children or grandchildren, or feel the Heather gently rise and fall beneath my feet. And I thank them often for the gift they gave me when I stood poised on the brink of a great adventure.

Copyright 2003, Robert A. Markwalter

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