I was a tender twenty-something, walking the beach with a broken heart.

My marriage, only six years in, had fallen apart. The man I married, someone I loved
and admired and thought was The One, had turned out to be a different person.

Was it me? Did I cause his anger, his impatience, his need to control every aspect of
our life together? Would things get better if I worked on myself … whatever that meant?
Or were we simply a bad match, and I hadn’t seen that in the beginning? There was so
much conflict between us, I wasn’t even sure we still loved each other.

As I trudged along the sand, a whirlwind of questions swirled around me, the hot winds
of doubt. I had come to this place, where land met water, in search of answers. I needed
some kind of surety, and maybe, just maybe—the courage to make a decision.

Should I leave him?

Waves lapped at my bare feet and sandpipers ran ahead of me, dodging the incoming
surf, their tiny feet leaving a trail of hieroglyphics in the wet sand. Could those comical
little birds have an answer for me? Or was there a clue in the restless coming and going
of the tide?

I could feel the turmoil in my mind. The desperate clawing for a “yes” or a “no,” a signal
from nature that I could trust as the answer.

I walked for miles, all the way to a rocky point at land’s end, where a stone jetty
stretched out into the Gulf. The sun was sinking. Dispirited, I turned around and headed
back, retracing my steps along the shoreline. Nature had failed me; there would be no
answer that day.

Still, the questions hammered in my mind: Are we done? Is the marriage over?

And then … there it was, a large piece of driftwood at my feet. My own footprints, from
the first half of my walk, went right past it. Somehow I had missed this treasure.

The driftwood was about the size of a tennis racket. Bleached white, bone dry. It must
have been lying on the sand for a long time. Waiting for me. Mutely offering an answer.

I picked it up. It felt light in my hand, pleasantly smooth. It had a forked shape,
something like a dowsing rod, but … not quite. My brain buzzed for a second—curious,
confused. Then the truth clicked into place. The truth of an answer.

That fragment of driftwood formed a perfect letter Y.

​

*********

​

Now it’s 40 years later. I’ve lived a huge chunk of my life since that walk on the beach.
I’m married again, happily this time. My driftwood Y has moved with me from house to
house to house. Each time, I find a place of honor for it.

The “yes” still rings true.