Summer's end brings sadness and a reminder to live each day

This is a commentary by Mark Murphy, a local author and physician. He is a longtime contributor to the Savannah Morning News.

I dreamed about my friend David Byck the other night.

In my dream, I was lounging on the beach at Tybee at the end of a hot summer’s day. The ochre sun burned low into the horizon as waves crashed onto the sand. Seagulls wheeled and flapped overhead as a pair of dolphins surfaced just offshore. I tasted the metallic tang of the salt air, feeling the ocean breeze on my face as I watched my sons build a sandcastle at the edge of the surf.

I felt a pair of hands on my shoulders and glanced up.

David was standing behind me. He looked down at me and smiled, then nodded at my children, saying nothing.

And then I woke up.

When I was young, the end of summer was always tinged with sadness. Summer was a time of freedom, of bike rides and trips to the beach or the swimming pool, a time when I only had to be in by dark. I could read what I wanted, stay up late watching late-night television, and hang out with my friends as we talked about sports, airplanes, Star Trek, and, later in life, the incredibly mysterious universe of girls.

Fall wasn’t summer. The days were shorter, nights grew longer, the air was cool, I had homework to do, and things began to shrivel up and die.

If summer was a house party, fall was a funeral reception.

Labor Day weekend is the traditional end of summer. Although it is still hot as Hades outside, this Labor Day certainly felt like summer’s end: Jimmy Buffet died, another hurricane was brewing in the Atlantic, and college football kicked off with a couple of early-season upsets (really, Clemson? Losing to Duke?).

I no longer have homework. I read what I want and do what I want. The constraints on my freedom that the change of seasons once imposed upon me no longer exist. But I remain a rampant sentimentalist, drawn to the simple hedonistic pleasures of summertime, and summer’s end always makes me a little sad.

So back to my dream: David Byck died in November 2020, in the middle of the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic. His outdoor graveside service at Bonaventure was one of the lowest points of that awful year, a year I once termed “the ultimate annus horribilis.”

But David’s death taught me something.

David’s contributions to Savannah’s medical community were profound, but his greatest impact was as a loving husband and father. When my son Josh was married in Athens, Ga., in March 2019, David was exuberant, exclaiming, “Isn’t this great? This is what life’s all about!”

Later that evening, shrouded in fog, he bellowed the North Carolina fight song from the rooftop bar at the Georgia Theater after his beloved Tar Heels defeated the Duke Blue Devils in the ACC Championship basketball game.

I wrote a column about David after he died in which I stated the most important lessons I learned from David: Don’t take a moment in your life for granted. Give back, as much as you can. And love the people you love with all your heart.

I am no longer a young man. It is the autumn of my life. Leaves are beginning to fall, and hurricanes loom just over the horizon.

But I am not sad.

It has been said that wisdom is the product of knowledge and experience. I am a wiser man these days. I don’t worry as much. I take more time to enjoy beautiful things. And I do indeed love the people I love, with all my heart.

I think that’s what David was trying to say to me in my dream, without saying a word: Enjoy summer while it lasts, because it doesn’t last forever.

So thank you, David. Once again, you’ve taught me something. We all miss you, but we’ll catch you on the flip side.

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Summer's end brings sadness and a reminder to live each day