Atonement By The Sea

I have found a new beach that I now call home since home is, after all, where the heart resides. I am no further away from my family’s home in Sussex Country, Delaware than any beach I have ever visited since I was a child. This beach is off the beaten path away from where the tourists commune with sand and sea and remains a gem for the locals.

The air temperature is 80º F with just enough clouds to stimulate visual imagination. The breeze is just enough to keep from feeling overheated. Nature’s radiator is in perfect working order. The tide is receding so I can get close to the water knowing I am not likely to get wet. When I want to get wet, I can simply jump in – and I do!

The waves are perfect. Not too violent but amply providing the gentle thunderous acoustics heard only by the seas. Time slows down. In my ears rest earbuds piping into my skull piano music from the likes of Kevin Kern, Brian Crain, Paul Cardall and others.

This is the very beach where my biological mother sat and reflected on the pain and sorrow of having to give me up for adoption. I too have spent many a day sitting on many sands, within a few miles of this very spot reflecting on my own pain and sorrows completely unaware of this beach or its significance until very recently. My mother sat by the sea and mourned for what she wanted but had to give away, me. I sit by the sea and mourn for what I had and threw away, also me. For she and I, having lost the same person, me, we both chose to seek atonement by the sea.