Once upon a time, in the dead of winter, a girl was born to a mother who died during childbirth and a father who never returned home one fateful night. From Heaven, her parents loved their daughter fiercely, more powerful than a windstorm, and they grieved for her, knowing she would never meet them.
Her mother's sister took her in, raising her alongside her cousins, though they found her peculiar. She sat cross-legged at the dinner table, refused to use a fork, and was often found asleep on the floor or porch instead of her bed. As her aunt taught arithmetic, she doodled swirls and ocean waves. In church, she twirled her wild hair around her fingers, much to the disdain of her cousins who treated her as if she were invisible.
Her hair was a wild tangle of blonde static, and her eyes resembled seaweed. Thin and agile, she often slipped away unnoticed. She first escaped her cradle when she learned to crawl, and her aunt almost lost her to the tide one early spring before rescuing her. Frequently, she skipped her lessons to sit on the shore's rocks, gazing at the horizon and watching the waves dance. Sailors might glimpse her, a ballerina on the coast, twirling with the waves.
The girl loved the ocean, and it loved her back. As she watched the tide, the tide reached for her but was always pulled back. Again and again, the ocean tried to hold her hand, but the rock she sat upon was too high. Sometimes, the waves stilled to listen as she sang moonsongs and wished upon the stars. She believed her parents were among them, catching her wishes with butterfly nets, and she was right. Her parents wept in Heaven, watching their daughter who always teetered on the rock's edge. They caught her wishes and passed them to God, surrounding their girl with arms of wind and sea-breeze. They observed as the ocean became her sanctuary, day in and day out, holding their breath each time she fell asleep on the rocks, fearing she might roll into the sea.
One night, on the brink of womanhood, she sat cross-legged on her rock, weeping from the weight of her difference, ridicule, and loneliness. The world was too heavy, and she had no one but herself to cry on. The ocean wept salty tears for her, and Heaven joined in, with rain falling like prayers. As the storm raged above and the sea churned below, she gazed into the heart of the ocean. Feeling Heaven's eyes upon her and hearing the ocean's mourning, she realized for the first time that she had been loved all along, just as she had loved the ocean. No longer feeling alone, she stood barefoot and bold against the storm, sending her prayer not to Heaven but into the depths. Her parents in Heaven wept harder than ever, standing beside her on the rocks but unable to hold her back. She reached out her hand, and the ocean, which had loved her more than the world ever could, finally held it. As the tide reaches the shore only to be pulled away, the ocean at last took its beloved home.