Fallen shadows

     The shadows that follow behind her as she walks down the beach are reminders of her life and all that consumed her. One by one the dark figures drop into the sand, forgotten for the rest of her walk on golden sands.  She lets the oceans healing breeze blow through her hair as she stoops to pick up a shell that caught her eye, but it's the real treasure that still awaits her.

     The crimson ball of heat has all but left as have the washed away sandcastles. Surfers return to shore dreaming of bigger swells tomorrow, and she continues her walk into the moonlit beauty of breaking waves and the smell of healing ocean air. Just ahead of her she thinks she sees movement but can’t decide if she did or were her eyes playing tricks on her? Then within fifteen feet, she saw a lady of the sea coming ashore to lay her eggs in the protection of the sandy dunes. She sat on the still warm sand and watched as the giant turtle accomplished her task and slowly went back out to her beloved sea.

     She began the long walk back under the light of the moon thrilled with what she had witnessed alone in the dark with a mother to be from another world. A simple thing really, a fact of nature that occurs up and down the beaches for miles in both directions but it never happened to her before, and upon reaching her stairway up from the cooling sand she realized all her shadows had disappeared and her mind was quiet and at peace. 

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