The Worth of a Grain of Sand

A woman is walking down the warm coastal shores. She feels the sand between her bare feet, cold and dry. The wind picks up and the zephyr of the sea lovingly caresses her hair. She smiles at how it simultaneously manages to take her breath and worries away. Her hands gird her barren shoulders, chilled by the sinking sun that is dissipating into the black oblivion. Her eyes tenderly locked on a couple sitting atop the shore embankment, a silhouette frozen in perfection.

Upon an heirloomed blanket that her Bubbe had given to her as a Bat Mitzvah, she sits and inhales the salty shore air. It was the first time in years that she had noticed the sky and the pelicans soaring overhead. The voracious wind surrounds her and cleanses her body unlike ever before. Staring out into the hypnotic swells, vibrations rouse her skin as the surf kisses the shore. She allows her heart to match the rhythm of the tide.

As the bon fire roars, she gathers sand within her hands. She walks alone by the bay admiring the eternal birth of the moon from its watery home. The stars illuminate the sky, and she begins to remember. She recalls the stories of her grandparents’ treacherous emigration to these exact shores without anything but the clothes on their backs. She thinks of grandaunts and granduncles that mutely wore jagged numbers down their arms. One look at the moon transports her to countless hours spent making challah and learning to kindle Shabbat candles with her mother. Cupping the sand close to her bosom, tears rolling down her cheeks, she realizes that each grain holds the story of her family.

As she unfurls her grip, thousands of grains of sand scatter her memories into the sea. Transcendentally, she realizes that family and her spiritual connection to them can never be severed by death. Each grain reminds her that through exploration and adventure, one discovers how to connect with the heart of the universe; to the Divine itself. It is a welcome flush from the unconscious repetition of modern living.

 © DNKG 2014  Worth of a Grain of Sand