On the day the Griffin family checked into Rainbows End, the house they’d rented for a week-long vacation on Dauphin Island, Kelly Griffin saw a rainbow over the Gulf of Mexico. It turned out to be a fortuitous sign.
Their trip had been planned for months. They had started dreaming of sunshine and warm sand around Christmastime, when there was six inches of snow on the ground at their home just south of the Kansas City, Missouri, metro area. The Griffins were familiar with the Alabama Gulf Coast from previous vacations in Orange Beach, but they’d never been to Dauphin Island.
When Kelly discovered Rainbows End, a four-bedroom, two-bath house that sits right at the water’s edge, she knew it would be perfect for her family. As opposed to their usual condo, where it’s “a trek to get to the shoreline,” she says, here the beach would be at their doorstep. “It seemed like heaven."
Earlier this year, they made the reservation for mid-May. Then the coronavirus pandemic happened, but they didn’t cancel, deciding to “wait and see.” This trip was too important to them, so they continued to hold out hope.
You see, the Griffins weren’t anxiously awaiting the reopening of the beach because they were bored from weeks of sitting around in their house. Kelly’s husband, Rob, has terminal brain cancer, and this could be his last vacation with his family. They are making the most of the time he has left.
Fortunately for them, Gov. Kay Ivey re-opened the beaches just in time, the week before their vacation was scheduled to begin.
And, as the good-luck rainbow foretold, their trip to Dauphin Island was the best vacation they ever had. The day after they returned to Missouri, Kelly posted a moving thank-you on the “Dauphin Island, Alabama” public group on Facebook, eliciting responses from 3,000 people.
‘We were floored’
Rob and Kelly, along with their daughters, 16-year-old Paisley and 20-year-old Hayley, and Hayley’s friend Gracie, spent about 15 hours driving down from Missouri in their minivan.
The first nice thing that happened to them was meeting Linda Eyermann, who responded to Kelly’s post on the Dauphin Island Facebook page asking where she could rent a three-wheeled bicycle for Paisley, who has special needs. Linda immediately offered her own personal trike.
“She was so nonchalant,” says Kelly. “It was like she was just loaning a cup of sugar.”
Kelly was worried about how to get the bike, how to lock it up – but Linda reassured her that she and her husband, who own Anytime Island Repair, could deliver it, and assured her that there was no need to lock it.
“We were floored,” Kelly says. “She didn’t even know our story, but she was so loving and kind. It was definitely a gift.”
Kelly and Linda would soon become fast friends. When Linda brought the bike over, she and Kelly sat on the deck and talked. It turns out that the two moms have a lot in common. Four years ago, Linda had a brain tumor removed. Her husband had bought her a three-wheeled bike when she could no longer ride a two-wheeled one because of vertigo.
Also, Linda, who is originally from Picayune, Mississippi, lived in Missouri for 25 years before she and her family relocated to Dauphin Island eight years ago.
“We found it by accident, fell in love and knew we’d never leave,” Linda says.
When she found out about Rob’s terminal illness, Linda “was just crushed,” she says. “It took my breath away.”
The next night, there was a knock at the door of Rainbows End. Kelly opened the door to find a delivery of banana pudding from Dinner’s Ready, a local catering and takeout kitchen, with a note reading, “From Dauphin Island with love.”
Kelly knew it had to be from Linda, the only person she had met on the island. Though she’d hoped to remain anonymous, Linda had to admit she’d sent the dessert. The next night, there were cupcakes outside their door.
“We were so touched,” says Kelly. “This was such a vacation for us. We were cherishing every minute. To be loved on like that made the trip even better.”
‘Nobody was ready to leave’
When Paisley was born with a rare genetic syndrome, doctors “didn’t know if she would make it,” says Kelly. “We brought her home and said we’d take what God gave us. As long as she didn’t give up, we wouldn’t give up.”
Paisley has low muscle tone and needs a feeding tube (although she’s able to eat some foods without it). She’s also nonverbal, but her parents started teaching her sign language before her first birthday and she now has her own interpreter at school. She had to have skull reconstruction surgery at age 6 to relieve intracranial pressure.
None of that has stopped her from flourishing, her mom says. She’s active in Special Olympics, winning gold medals in all five of her events, including dance (her favorite), track, basketball, bowling and bocce ball.
While on vacation, Paisley rode the loaned trike in the bike lane on Bienville Avenue, the island’s main thoroughfare, with her dad walking alongside to steady her, just like they do at home. She especially enjoyed honking Linda’s parrot-shaped horn.
She also got to collect seashells that washed up under their rental house every morning. “That was another thing that was magical,” her mom says. “There were so many in one piece. She was so excited because she didn’t have to go very far. She was like a kid in a candy store.”
Another magical thing about Rainbows End was that it enabled Rob to be outside with everyone else, while staying protected from sun exposure in the shade beneath the house.
In December of 2018, Rob, who until then had been “completely healthy,” Kelly says, and worked out five days a week, was diagnosed with Stage 4 melanoma after his doctor discovered a large mass in his brain and another in his lung.
For 14 months, he underwent immunotherapy treatment until, just a couple of months ago, he and Kelly were devastated to learn it wasn’t working, and he switched to “last-resort treatment.”
“I really didn’t think we’d be able to take this vacation, but we were determined to spend a week together,” he says. “Fortunately, it all turned out the way it did. It was perfect timing.”
They rented kayaks and took them out through the waves to calmer waters. One day, they rode the Mobile Bay Ferry to Fort Morgan and drove down to Orange Beach, where they’ve had several fun vacations in the past. But they missed the laid-back slice of heaven they’d discovered on the island.
“It has such a different feel,” Rob says. “I don’t know how many times we mentioned the difference. There are so many little places we fell in love with. Nobody was ready to leave.”
For Hayley, a full-time student at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, the trip was a chance to unwind and “jump the waves like a little kid,” her mom says. “A lot of responsibility has fallen on her this past year.”
Hayley had been hospitalized for five days the week before their trip due to a mono-like virus – and that might have been the scariest thing Kelly has endured yet, she says, because she had to leave her daughter there alone due to the Covid-19 guidelines. She was still weak and taking medication when they left for vacation.
Dauphin Island offered “something for all of us,” says Kelly. “The whole trip was such a gift. We kept saying, ‘We’re going to take it day by day,’ because that’s how we’ve been living, one day at a time. It was so good for all of us.”
‘The icing on the cake’
On their way out of town, they stopped by Lighthouse Bakery. While they were standing in line, a woman came out from behind the counter and handed them a bag. “Someone gifted you a cinnamon roll,” she said.
“Do we look that pitiful?” Kelly remembers thinking. “It was just so sweet, the icing on the cake. It solidified that Dauphin Island is just the perfect little beach town.”
Such kindnesses, from Linda’s loaning them the trike to the sweet treats they enjoyed, are “great little reminders of things you can do that affect somebody else,” says Rob.
But Linda insists she’s the one who has benefited the most by meeting the Griffins. “Kelly kept telling me I was such a blessing,” she says. “But she was definitely the blessing to me. I’m hoping and praying they all get to come back.”
And while the family was conscientious of social distancing on their vacation, they made one exception. “I’m not gonna lie,” Linda says. “We all hugged.”