Sea Isle City, New Jersey
It’s August 3. My mother’s birthday. Standing in the surf, my youngest son this morning said to me: “What would you do if you could breathe underwater and live there under deep pressure the rest of your life?” “I would eat more fish, I think.” “You could explore the Mariana Trench,” he corrected me.
My brother-in-law Matt came down with his two sons to join us. The boys splashed and hollered in the rough sea. The red flag was put up by the lifeguards today. The fathers talked about how much easier it got each year. When the kids were babies or toddlers you had to stop them from eating sand or chasing sandpipers all the way north on the beach until they reached Strathmere, and prevent them from drowning or otherwise soothe them so they didn’t ruin everyone else’s time. Matt and I have been doing this trip with our wives and their extended family since before we each married in and before the family really extended. We’re now a much larger tribe: Christofalos, Marseks, Torettas, Komosinskis and Doughertys. I spent the morning thinking a lot about my last name and what it means.
I watched my nine-year-old son pick up a boogie board for the first time and quickly start to master it. In today’s hard chop he still wanted me to be close to him. I had to jump out of the way when he caught a wave and came speeding toward me and the shore. It was 81°F. Sunny. Clear skies over this part of the Jersey Shore. A great day to be on vacation. To our left we could see Atlantic City, to our right the shore goes down to Cape May. Each Jersey Shore town is ruthlessly socially segregated. An Instagram video explained to me today that in the neighboring town of our vacation spot, Avalon (another barrier island just south of us here), your kids go to private school near the Philly Mainline or in the Northeast – and your style is definitely preppy. True. Sea Isle City seems like it’s more for the very affluent proletariat. Guys who own hauling or construction companies in their fifties who are finally making mid-six-figures. They’re hanging Philadelphia Eagles banners off the deck on their side of a seven-figure beach duplex.
We order lunch from Uncle Oogies, delivered to the beach. I got the Monsignor, a cheesesteak sandwich with bacon and mayo. Ridiculous. My daughter – my eldest – barely checks in with me now. We always do this vacation at the start of August and so we’ve developed a ritual in the drive. From the suburbs of Westchester County, across the Tappan Zee Bridge (still nobody calls it the Mario Cuomo Bridge), and down the Garden State Parkway. We stop in the town I grew up in, Bloomfield. I quickly start to feel real nostalgia, the pain of not really being able to go home.
We drive past the Nevada Diner. A few blocks later we turn right, then right again and then into Mount Olivet cemetery. I make sure to visit the gravestone under which are my uncle Kevin and my cousin and namesake, Baby Michael. In another section, under one gravestone with the name Dougherty, is everyone who lived in my childhood home under that surname. My grandfather (d. 1989.); grandmother (d. 1997); and my mother (d. 2011). We bring flowers and stones. I say my intercessory prayers and try not to lose my shit.
My boys have my mother’s maiden name for their surname because I was a sensitive bastard. Literally. My mother was a single mother and my father, being in Ireland, was far away. I’m not sure I have anyone who can authoritatively answer the question now, but I can guess they thought it would make it easier on me to have the same last name as the person raising me and the household I lived in. But now my father is in our lives. I’ve come to understand that what appeared to me as his abandonment was filled with regret, grief and sorrow on his part, not just mine. I’ve started to look at my wife and kids and feel they’ve been cheated out of their proper name on account of the sensitivity of a child I stopped being a long time ago. My mother’s solution – and ours – was to put my father’s surname in as a middle name.
At night we have an adventure Bible to read to my kids. My youngest loves it most of all. The Bible is the most violent kids book we read. I love his YouTube-influenced takes on it. We read the cleansing of the temple. “Jesus is crashing out. God is crashing out!” So far this trip, he’s learned that Solomon must have had rizz to have had that many wives. But God took that away with his wisdom. His brother has learned to boogie board. And I’ve seen that soon my role in my kids’ lives will be to be near, but not in the way. And, most mysterious of all, no matter which kind we choose, the flowers we buy for my mother feel heavier each year.
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