Despite everything, we’ve made it to the beach. This has been Piper’s fondest dream since Covid started. We had to cancel two other beach vacations during these months and it’s crushed her. She has told us that the sun and the water and the sky and the smells and the sounds of the ocean—it feeds her soul. Throughout these months, she has done so well: her grades have, if anything, gone up; she’s exercising; eating well; and generally pretty happy despite the million and one changes she’s had to deal with on a daily basis. But every once and a while, this cloud will hover over her; she is quiet and reserved and won’t talk to us. I hate those moments as a mama—I know that they mean she is deeply unhappy. So when she begged us, after our third trip was cancelled, to please, even if it’s just for a few days, find us a place by the beach (she didn’t care if it was a shack—her words), could we please please please make it happen? I said yes. Of cour...