walking along the beach with Leah

The first thing I ever lost...
I was four years old, and we were vacationing in Galveston. Before we got to the beach, we pulled into a bait shop. My dad is big on crabs. He can stand there in the sun all day long, reeling in crabs on some line rigged to a stick in the sand.

So we were making the usual bait shop stop, where my dad got his stuff and we girls got candy. But I remember this day. On this stop, I did not choose candy. Instead, I brought a sand toy to the counter. It was a plastic turtle, but it was really a bucket and a shovel and a sand castle mold, all packed away neatly into the turtle. I fell in love with it and spent the whole trip on the beach, creating sand castles, shoveling sand, sifting sand, putting seashells into the turtle, creating waterways and channels that allowed sea water to occasionally come up and surround my castles like a moat. I love the beach with all my heart and soul.

So after a few days, we packed up our things into the old white camper, and headed back up to Dallas. Everything was packed. Everything, except...


except my sand turtle kit.

I started crying and wailing the second it occured to me. My parents were startled and asked what was wrong, and I remember not being able to get the words out between my cries. Finally I managed to get it out, that my turtle was still on the beach, alone in the sand, and could we turn around and go get it? I wanted it, Daddy can you turn around?

The answer was no. We weren't even out of Galveston yet, I didn't understand.

I was quiet the whole way home. I remember closing my eyes and seeing my turtle on the beach. I thought about some other child playing with it. I thought about the turtle missing me as much as I was missing it.

By the time we got back home, I had thoroughly wrestled with and accepted my loss. It was ok.

But I can still see it, sitting there under the hot Texas sun, wondering where I am.

I wonder who found it.

I was thinking about this today, then I started thinking about my very first experience with pain.

It was during the same time period. We were vacationing at Lake of the Pines, in East Texas. I was walking beside my mom and dad and older sister along a trail that was literally covered in pine needles. It was winter. The sky was blue and the cold air blended with the sunshine made me feel so happy. I remember as we all walked along, I just got this gust of joy and took off and started running. I just ran. As fast as I could go, down the path littered with pine needles. It didn't last long. Within seconds I was on my face, and my hands were on fire with pain. I laid there crying until my parents caught up with me. They looked at my hands. Pine needles were embedded in them, all over. They started pulling out the ones they could, then brought me back to the camper for a painful session with the tweezers. The next morning my hands were swollen red, and I learned what "pus" was that day. It was painful. My hands were oozing. I was infected with pine juice.

We had to go home and I had to go to the doctor. Somehow I recovered from my run-in with the pine needles.

So these two memories are my first experiences with pain, and loss.

What are yours?