When I was at the Salvation Army, I passed a pile of picture frames.
In one of them was a photo of the words “I’ll Miss You Michelle” written in the sand, and the tide was reaching up to erase her name. It was such a peculiar photo. There was nothing visually interesting in the piece—no people, no shells, no anything but a footprint, the words in the sand, and the ocean.
And yet, it’s very haunting: “I’ll Miss You.” It is most certainly a goodbye. If it said “I Miss You,” it would be possible to assume it’s a vacation shot (followed up with a “Wish You Were Here!”) or a lover pining for his/her soul mate. But the I’ll carries a sense of real sadness and finality. You don’t say “I Will Miss You” unless someone is making a move to leave, or is freshly gone. And furthermore, it was framed… why? Sentimentality? A joke? Some kind of RIP memorial?
And so, my insatiable curiosity compelled me to develop a few possibilities for who Michelle is/was and what the hell happened to her:
1. Michelle is a little mervixen who traded her fins for legs to seduce a prince, but found she couldn’t bear to keep her new human body as the trade-off was clawing out the prince’s heart and drinking his blood or some such, so she instead drowned herself and turned into seafoam, and now the prince pines. (Okay, I just really wanted to draw a sexy mermaid. Any excuse.)
2. Michelle is a seagull who befriended an impassioned bird enthusiast but gotten eaten by a shark, and the enthusiast, who thought Michelle was the love of his/her life, never got over it.
3. The ocean itself wrote the message for Michelle, the woman who lost her bikini top thanks to a ginormous wave and then swore off going back in the water for the rest of the day. C’mon, Michelle, didn’t that swim mean anything to you? The ocean really thought you two had a long future ahead of you. At least call the Pacific back. Have a heart!
4. Michelle is the name of the message-writer’s leg, which was lost at sea in a mishap too tragic to retell. That’s why there’s only one print, made by a foot named Alison.
5. It’s a spelling error—Michelle is supposed to read “My Shell,” a long lost conch.
Of course, we may never know for certain the purpose of this picture, but while we don’t know you to miss you, we’ll now always remember you, Michelle!
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1 Comment on "“I’ll Miss You Michelle”"
Wow, there are so many stories to tell and to think about. I agree that the framed picture does make me think sadness. Michelle, if you are reading this… please tell us the tale and why you gave it away for someone else to ponder it’s history.