Following a Dream

Our family lived in several different places and then thirty years ago we made the ultimate change and moved to an island off the east coast. My husband left his university job, we pulled our kids out of school, sold a ton of stuff at a yard sale and squeezed what was left into a U-Haul trailer.  We pulled out of Texas, heading for a new and different life, to run a business at the beach. “Sand in our shoes,” was the answer we gave to questions from dismayed relatives and friends.  Our time there was wonderful.  We had an opportunity to spend some of every day walking on largely deserted beaches.  Our boys attended a K through 12 school of 200 students where the official policy stated, “Students Must Wear Shoes” and where surfing or standing on a ocean pier and fishing was a common after school activity.  When the weather got colder, our dog caught sand sharks in the salt water creek behind our house and brought them home as trophies.  Violent thunderstorms shook the island with a beauty I’ve seen nowhere else. We didn’t end up spending the rest of our lives there, as we had originally anticipated we would.  There were various reasons — not the least of which involved an inability to earn enough money to survive — and then a hurricane hit with massive flooding and destruction and put the kibosh on the rest of our plans.  I don’t have any regrets — it was a wonderful adventure and I’d do it all over again. I like to remember the words of a friend who waved us off as we pulled away from our house in Texas.  He told me, “Sometimes you just have to follow a dream.”  Thank you, Larry.  It’s been good advice so many times, in so many ways over the years.  Sometimes you just have to follow a dream.