By Phyllis J. Lubin

 “The sand may brush off, the salt may wash clean, the tan may fade, but the memories will last forever!” says the cabana sign my eldest daughter hung at the beach club this past Monday.

Yes, we are back at Sunny Atlantic, but this summer we have “moved up” from a locker to a pool cabana. Now I can not only swim at the club, but also relax and read a book from the comfort of our home away from home. The refrigerator (which is temporarily on loan from Rivka’s dorm and has already survived the first two years of its life with my eldest daughter at Binghamton, followed by three years at Stern College with Rivka) has found its summer home at Cabana 1 at Sunny Atlantic. Now we can keep our healthy fruit and low-calorie drinks on hand for our beach-club outings.

I thought a lot about that beach sign this morning. Every experience we have goes into a special place in our minds and hearts.

This past week I had two such moments that will become perfect memories.

Tuesday night was the bat mitzvah club finale at the Chabad of the Five Towns. Every month, the bat mitzvah-aged young ladies had the opportunity to study a bit about various Jewish heroines. The year concluded with this wonderful evening where all the girls had moments to shine with special performances by each one.

The night’s final performance was a wonderful duet about moms by none other than Lea Gittele Lubin and her friend, which was sung with a lovely slideshow of all the moms and daughters in the background. Lea’s poise and pleasant voice warmed my heart. I am so proud of her and that evening’s memory will be forever cherished.

Last night’s experience was another moment that will go into my memory bank.

Yosef Binyamin appeared in the South Side High School’s Centre Stage production. Centre Stage is an inclusive drama club at South Side High School in Rockville Centre that brings together special-education and general-education students. Each year, the club puts on a full-length, originally adapted and directed play. In the past, they have put on the plays Neverland . . . A South Side Story, The Wizard of South Side, Slick, Camp Rockville, and High School Musical: South Side Style. This year, the Centre Stage play was South Side Glee, loosely based on the television show (which I have never seen) of the same name. The actors expressed the importance of music and dance and entertained us all. The middle-school students (a group to which Yosef proudly belongs) were in two dance numbers in the last ten minutes of the show, and we immensely enjoyed the talents of the high-school performers leading up to Yosef’s moment in the spotlight.

Yussie is a born actor. He loves the limelight and never shies away from being the center of attention. He certainly has confidence and a huge amount of charm, which seem to endear him to almost everyone he meets. We were delighted to see that Yussie seems to have a huge fan club not only at the middle school, but now at the high school as well.

The wonderful thing about the Rockville Centre school district that Yussie has become a part of in the past few years is that the special-education population is part and parcel of everything that goes on within its schools–be it school athletics, band, choir, and now the Centre Stage theatre group. How happy were the smiling faces–of both the audience and performers!

As we near the conclusion of the school year, summer is on all of our minds. We hope to make more beautiful memories, and we are looking forward, of course, to some lazy days at Sunny Atlantic even before camp begins.

This summer we are trying something daring with Yussie. Last year he spent one month at Camp Mesorah through Yachad (mainstreamed with a wonderful shadow), and this summer we have opted to send him for the entire summer.

Hence we have to “chap” in as much fun in the sun as we can with the crew at the beach. We already spent Monday and Tuesday basking in the sun and have already stocked the cabana with our favorite treats. After all, as the other sign that our eldest daughter put up at our mini home says, we must “live, love, laugh, at the beach!” v

Phyllis Joy Lubin is an attorney with Maidenbaum & Sternberg, LLP, who resides in Cedarhurst with her husband, Leonard. They have six children–Naftali, Shoshana, Rivka, Rochel, Yosef, and Lea–and a daughter-in-law, Nina. The author welcomes your questions and comments at MothersMusings@gmail.com.

 

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