Could we go back? Could you tell me how you found this place? I can’t remember the story.

My heart was hurting. The depth of loss was unfathomable. I was swallowed by the pain.

How could my father be gone? My rock, my stability, taken. His absence a gaping hole and a beautiful beach home that had connected me to him gone now as well.

In my dreams I saw him on the shore, we laughed on the pier, tossed footballs in the sand.

Magically in the summer of 2011 you saw my need and found a place so similar yet so foreign to what I grew up knowing.

A place we could spend a lifetime making family memories.

We danced in the waves, built sandcastles on its shore. I could see this place weave its way into our girls’ hearts.

When we divorced two years later, I wouldn’t let the signature on a paper also take away our beach.

So, I continued to bring them, year after year, never missing. They grew up on this island.

When Matt and their stepsisters came along, they introduced them to its restaurants and shopping. One day they found themselves showing the babies it’s sea turtles.

Life came full circle, and, on these shores, they grieve you as I once did him.

I will not let them loose this place too.

They see you in the crab they catch and hear your voice on the waves and in the wind.

We have found refuge on these shores.

Matt and I come now and dream about the house we will own here.

We are closer to making it a reality.

Thank you, friend, for your role in helping us to land here.

Know this place will always shelter our girls, and you will live on here forever.