Driftaway: A Girl, the Sea, and Love Beyond Words
There once was a girl born during a harsh winter storm, her first breath a soft cry as the wind howled through the broken windows of a small seaside cottage. Her mother’s last breath was a whispered prayer, and her father’s love was left drifting on the waves the night he did not return from the sea. Though their bodies were lost to the earth, their love for their daughter soared beyond the clouds, stronger than the fiercest gale, watching her from Heaven with every sunrise and moonrise.
She grew up in the care of her mother’s sister, living among her cousins in a home that felt both safe and unfamiliar. The girl was different, they would often say, a quiet echo within noisy rooms. She sat cross-legged at the dinner table, preferring her fingers to forks, letting grains of rice stick to her palms like tiny treasures. Her cousins would find her curled on the porch, her hair tangled with sea breeze, sleeping on the wooden planks instead of her soft bed, always listening to the whispers of the waves.
She would draw spirals and rolling waves in the margins of her arithmetic lessons, and during church, she twirled strands of wild blonde hair around her fingers as hymns floated through the air. Her cousins would glance at her, giggling under their breaths, while she continued to trace the outlines of the tide in her mind.
Her hair was like sunlight caught in a storm, her eyes deep green like seaweed waving beneath clear water. Thin and quick, she moved like a ghost through the house, slipping away unnoticed, often vanishing toward the shore where the sea met the sand. She climbed the rocks and sat high above the tide, her small legs dangling, her gaze fixed on the restless horizon. Fishermen sometimes spotted her, a small figure dancing with the wind, arms outstretched as if she could catch the breeze and rise into the sky.
The girl loved the ocean with a love pure and wordless, and the ocean, in its ancient and infinite wisdom, loved her in return. Each morning the tide would creep closer, longing to touch her hand, but each time it was pulled back into the depths, leaving a trail of foam in its retreat. On quiet nights, the waves would hush to listen as the girl sang soft songs to the moon, sending wishes like paper boats across the dark water, hoping they would reach her parents beyond the stars.
And indeed, her parents were there, catching her whispered wishes with nets of starlight, their hands joined as they wept for the daughter they could not hold. On nights when she fell asleep upon the rocks, the wind wrapped around her like a blanket, carrying the breath of her mother, while the salt in the breeze was the kiss of her father, and the stars above blinked in cautious hope that she would not slip into the waiting sea.
As the seasons turned, the girl grew, caught between childhood and womanhood, her heart heavy with the weight of loneliness. She felt the sharpness of being different, the sting of laughter that wasn’t shared with her, the emptiness of waiting for a world that did not see her softness as a gift. One night, as a storm gathered its breath and the sea roared with restless longing, the girl climbed to her rock, her bare feet cold against the stone, and let herself cry.
She cried for her mother’s lullabies she had never heard, for the father’s strong arms she had never felt, for every moment of her life spent feeling like she was reaching for something she could never touch. The ocean wept with her, sending its waves higher to meet her tears, and Heaven cried too, rain falling like silver prayers upon the earth.
In the chaos of thunder and crashing surf, the girl lifted her face to the storm, her hair flying wild around her, her eyes locked on the restless sea. She felt, for the first time, the love that had always been around her—love from the sea that called her home with every wave, love from Heaven that watched over her with every star, love from her own heart that longed to belong.
She whispered her final wish, not to the sky this time, but to the deep. The ocean roared in response, and the rain fell harder as her parents stood beside her, invisible yet present, begging her to stay, but unable to hold her back. With a breath that felt like freedom, the girl reached out her hand, and the sea, which had loved her more faithfully than the world ever could, finally took it.
The tide pulled her into its embrace, and the sea, which had spent years trying to reach the girl on the rock, at last, brought its beloved home.
Lesson:
Even when we feel unseen by the world, there is love waiting to embrace us—sometimes in the waves that call us home, sometimes in the prayers whispered on the wind. You are never alone.
