Assateague

It was early. The time of day when people get up to catch the tide and go fishing. The foursome were staying at Patrick’s family’s house in Bloxom, Virginia. A place of potato farms and pine trees in the sandy soil. People who didn’t grow up there moved there to retire, as Patrick’s parents were planning some day.
This morning they were going to a destination to watch the sun come up, a place that Carole knew from a famous kids book – Misty of Chincoteague, about a horse and pony swims across the bay between Assateague and Chincoteague Island. Wild horses lived on Assateague Island and do even today, roaming among the National Seashore dunes in herds. Only Patrick had ever been there. Louise and Carole and Howard, sleepy though they were, were excited… to be together, in that cool summer morning before the heat came up, driving to the ocean.
Down the long road, across the marshes, the colors of the dawn filled their view – the indigo and yellow/reds of the dawn. With the windows down, the salty marsh air filled the car. Tall dunes stood in front of them when they parked on the deserted lot. Still no sign of the ocean, but they could hear it.
Walking up and over the boards to cross the sand, suddenly the view of the ocean appeared in front of them. As far as they could see, ocean and sand dunes and grasses. Sandcrabs scurried among the shells and stones, seagulls and sandpiper racing the waves. Nothing Howard had ever seen compared to this breathtaking moment. The wonder of what had been created in this place by the work of God. The absolute overwhelming joy to be there, with Carole most of all, and with their closest friends. All the love in his heart for her, for God, for life was impossible to articulate.
They walked hand in hand down the beach and back. His soul was changed to be there with her. His DNA changed, she was imprinted into his heart, his being. Love as pure as it could be, this gift from God.
Assateague would be the place that was theirs. In years to come they would come back again and again. The dunes would get smaller, but maybe they stayed the same, only the memory of that first time would make them remembered so tall.
To be back there again, with her, t-shirt and cut off blue jean shorts, barefoot, hand in hand, walking for miles… that was the definition of being in love.