Ocean City the conclusion

We drove down the long road out of Ocean City. We passed by the hotel and other abandoned buildings. Over the bridge with the bluish-green water below. The bridge is just a slab of concrete over the ocean.
One night we had also driven through town, past the pond where a Christmas tree floated in the middle. The tree was small, and lonely perhaps isolated out on those waters.
I asked my father if we could come again. “Come again?” he repeated, for that could mean many things.
“To this place,” I said. “I know we really can’t. Even if we did come back, it wouldn’t be the same.” I will have grown and changed by then. And even now the beach is eroding. A recent hurricane swept the sands up along the street near the parked cars. Every year the sand is piled a little higher around the dunes.
It’s funny how I’ll never get this moment back, and maybe I won’t even remember it right. That’s because I won’t see things the same, so maybe it will be like the fading sand---a slight memory that I can barely remember at all.
“Goodbye beach,” I whispered as we drove away. The last few flecks of sand flew out of my hair in the highway breeze, but I didn’t mind. I was sad but I was content.