Sooner or later it's gonna come, your last wave. How do you want to sign off?
It’s hard to contemplate, but, sooner or later, it’s gonna come.
Your last wave.
Maybe one VAL lecture on equality in the lineup or collision too many vaporises the love.
Diminishing returns and a disgust in your atrophying skills convince you to turn out the light.
Or you get old and you switch, first, to a longboard, then a SUP, and then it just gets too hard.
Below, we see a terminally ill man, ruined by dementia, whose loving wife helps him ride one last wave into the sunset.
A beautiful coda, yes?
https://twitter.com/giancola_ryan/status/1151516871314870272
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This just gave me an idea to help me keep scoring waves when I’m older and the surf is crowded beyond measure.
Turn up when it’s pumping and have my wife give the dementia story about how I want to catch one last wave before I go. Then get called/pushed into an epic one by the heart-warmed crowd.
Then turn up on the next swell and do the exact same thing again. If anyone calls me out on it, I’ll just say “sorry, I forgot. I’ve got dementia”.
I like rhubarb and apple pie with hazelnuts sprinkled on top.
I hope they dragged him back out for a few more
no one here gets out alive
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
Pa Bendall, suffering from MND (Lou Gehrig’s Disease stateside I think?), would make his way to the waves at Moffats until he couldn’t any more. That’s always been inspiring.
I will always think of him , Pa Bendall , as the man , who had a car , and was generous enough to take Bob McTavish to surf at …… the secret spot … Noosa .
Very sad and very cool – If I had one last ride I would want it to be with my kids!
My Great grandma drifted away while I was in college. I would stay at her home as much as I could, often for months at a time. She would “escape” and I knew her route… same as her shopping route that I followed her on as a boy. When it became acute, we would prop her up in a rocking chair in our family stores front window and she would watch traffic go by all day every day. Saddest fucking thing I’ve ever seen. Only way I knew she was aware of my presence was she would squeeze my finger sitting next to her.
As for this guy…. Please take him into the water again and hook him into a real ride.
The indignity of aging is something we are not taught verbally, but the evidence is glaring once you pay attention.
“To die, to sleep – to sleep, perchance to dream – ay, there’s the rub, for in this sleep of death what dreams may come…”
Hamlet
So gnarly Jimbo…. fuck.
The human condition ….. totally absurd …
May force us to ask big questions on the right to life and Euthanasia ?
I have no answers but have great respect for empathy in humanity …..from cradle to the grave .
A talking point of mine with “conservatives”….. why is the fetus so sacred, then once birthed, the child left to it’s own?
How do you come to that conclusion?
Many days, I thought about the ethics of Euthanasia and brother, please take me out if I”m unable to do so myself. Once the quality of life evaporates, why keep life in the prison of their own bodies?
That said, I’m atheist and to me, the game is over. But waiting around to forget your next meal and not be able to finish it while watching bad TV reruns is no longer life.
And please, let that old man ride a decent whitewash to shore. Is that too much to ask?
If Venus ,the God of Beauty , created from the foam of breaking waves ,can surf safely to shore on a shell shaped by Botticelli then surely someone can design a sled for for those shuffling off this mortal coil …
https://m.youtube.com/watch…
I thought maybe Britt could put out a Conner Coffin ⚰️ model …
You know, thanks for reminding me…. you got me pissed off on vacation.
That last clip of Coffin was fucking good…. like everyone who surfs at a certain level recognizes pure ripping. The waves were grunty, big and the guy is just fucking hammering it to good music too.
Comment section here is trashing the kid. ? Isn’t that the type of clip you want to see? Legit as fuck. And all the mates are laying into him? Not a single bullshit air reverse, solid as a rock and the seagulls chirp?
Not a giant fan of Britt or his church in town, but the kid lays rail.
Sorry Hippy . Enjoy your break . Conner C draws lovely lines and I was just playing word games …..
My thought exactly, give him a decent wave ffs
The Actor , Robin Williams , playing a teacher , in Australian Peter Weir’s film “Dead Poet Society “ Quotes Walt Whitman
“O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life? Answer. That you are here—that life exists and identity,. That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a
verse. “
The problem is when do our lines start … or finish ….when do we start and stop contributing verse , and do we or others have the right to start or stop our parts in the powerful play .before the contributing starts ,or seems to have terminated ?
As an Atheist I have no problem with Birth Control or Euthanasia .
In most States, you can be convicted of murder of an unborn child, at any stage of development, even if the pregnant woman were to live. For instance an assault and battery resulting in termination of pregnancy would be considered manslaughter/murder of an unborn child.
Maybe that’s why the fetus is so sacred.
This whole thread is putting a huge pang in my heart..
where is Eddie haiku when you need him.
this is awesome. so many of my mates parents are battling with this. you eventually forget hot to swallow or breathe, then you die a painful death. your brain needs exercise just like your body.
Yeah but – bugger – they didn’t quite get the old boy into it hey.
I just want to get whipped into a bomb in tahiti. On a sponge I shaped. Because fuck it, if i make it I can say I did it. If i dont, at least I went for one.
Didn’t some guy write an article about that on here a while back. Also been mentioned on Aint that swell before too.
Even suicide ideas aren’t original anymore. What a world.
Dementia is definitely a cruel one. Dunno if you’d prefer it to strong mental faculties but lame body, tho.
We back and forthed on the nature of our deaths on the occasion of LA van guy Bob Bevern’s passing, here. https://beachgrit.com/video…
I was thinking of this one https://beachgrit.com/2018/…
“L’important n’est pas de guérir, mais de vivre avec ses maux.”
“N’être plus écouté : c’est cela qui est terrible lorsqu’on est vieux.”
Albert Camus .
“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.”
Albert Camus .
My mother in law has advanced dementia, can not remember what happened in the short term, but she is happy and not frustrated. My mother is as sharp as a tack but cruelled by vertigo, painful arthritis and housebound, perpetually pissed off with what she cant do anymore. Still dont know which one i would prefer.
Going to try this at 8’ Rincon
every few weeks
I was not aware that dementia is a terminal illness with a 12 month expiry date. Interesting…. I am currently in negotiation with the local cheapest “golden sheets” aged care facility about their exorbitantly expensive deposit for my old man. He deserves the best but he didn’t help me with a lawyer when I got locked up so I had to get bullshit Legal Aid… Subsequently, I’ve decided to enrol him in the shit facility where the Filipino tween uses the same wet towel on everyone to let him sweat for a few weeks and taste the destitution. Then I’ll surprise him with a good one over on the Peninsula or something. Sorry. Can’t remember where I was going with this story.
This is so pure Wigs – never change. And hopefully you will never find your way over to SoCal and end up as my caretaker/trustee in some kind of “Hey Gary, It’s me Wigs – remember when I gifted you my Spy Optics Happy Lenses for writing the best rant on Beach Grit?… time for pay back”.
Did you actually get the sunnies mate?
I did, being second best to Wigs is still pretty good, at least that week, but my son, who goes to the University of Arizona, grabbed them week one. But they are getting some good use. If you ever get out to Carlsbad or around here in California, I will buy you lunch and a few beers.
Great to hear someone got them mate!
Maybe terminal when you forget to eat and drink – but generally you go to a facility to be looked after no? Bit loose calling it terminal and 12 mths to live shit when avg life expectancy with alzheimers is 8-10yrs. Maybe they looking to crowdfund him something?
It’d be an estimated guess by the man’s wife, and would likely have been said towards the end of the 8-10 years you speak of.
Yeah mate as the primary carer for my grandfather with dementia in my 20s I know the process – not pleasant – but sometimes they can go on and on. I was picking up on Wiggs line as calling it “terminal” in a matter of fact way!! Wouldn’t wish it on anyone and good on em for giving him a crack!!
You are a strong human being Tom . My Grandmother , strong as a Bull , started writing names under the photos of family members and then when her neighbor passed away , things hit rock bottom and sadly it was all downhill mentally from then on for about 15 years , though she could still touch her toes ……When we were kids , She was funny as fuck , she threw Bungers ( fire crackers) out the window at passing noisy drunks from her 3rd storey window in Redfern a few blocks from the SCG , she imitated Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs as if she was Iggy Pop , At one stage she dyed her hair orange and looked much more like Cyndi Lauper than Dame Edna , she was generous with everyone , enough for 1 is enough for 10 , she talked to everyone and everybody and had a Jesus like quality ,though she never went to church . Once Grace Bros ( a department store in Oz ) phoned up and said “ Mrs MacD the Princess has arrived and you can pick her up . “ My nan said “ Are you kidding me . I don’t know no princesses ! “ and slammed down the phone ! They rang back “ Mrs MaC you ordered Princess Lea from us , we would just like to inform you that the Star Wars’ Figure has arrived ……..
Yeah thats generally what it comes down to – forgetting to eat and drink. My buddies dad died that way. They were literally holding him down trying to feed him, but he was so out of it he didn’t even know he was hungry. He basically starved to death.
There are multiple types of dementia besides Alzheimer’s. My mother had Frontal Temporal. She was gone in 5 years. RIP.
Wigg’s could you please tell us the story about why you were locked up ? This is Beach Grit , so it doesn’t have to be the true story or a real story ……. ?
Golden Sheets hahahaha this is just the best.
My Pop took fucken years to really give into it. It was only after twat minded and out of my control decision to put him in a god’s waiting room that it went down sharply. Even after I swore I’d be his carer and give up a career. Which I might add, in the end, fell off a cliff anyway.
Point being, keep your family as close as you can, it helps.
That was me
Turns out it was just a bit of man flu
Ah the old Manly Flu ..Of Corso ?