To first view this photo I am reminded of a time that was not so good in my life. It was a time of degradation, humiliation, and absolute horror. I had traveled to a beach much like this one for one last play of the game but I had arrived already feeling like I had lost.

I had to hang on. Hang on long enough to get him back to our home state. A feat that was not an easy one and yet it was. He had already taught me how to manipulate cause he had done it to me for so long. He had already taught me how to look in another's eyes and lie so that it was believed. And believed he did. He did not think he would face prosecution of his crimes but only time would tell.

The cost was almost more than I could bare but one that was well worth the price. The price of my children's very survival depended on how well I played the game. His madness had to stop and I was their only chance.

And so I played the game. I was his toy to do with has he would will, and on a beach much like this one. It was hard to walk along the shores, to view the towering Hotels. They all seemed to look alike. I was both here in the present and there in the past. Hearing and not hearing the voices, unable to decipher if what I was hearing was past or present.

Then my focus became clear. I was at this beach with my sister and her family. A new time in my life and a joyous one at that for it had been at least 3 years since I had seen any of them. We swam in these very waters and we laughed and talked the day away.

I had caught myself thinking of a friend. A friend that told me once that she felt the power of God on the shores of any beach. She could feel the strength and beauty of it all and things became simple for her. I listened as the waves rolled up onto the sand, the occasional seagull that would fly overhead, the sound of laughter and playing of adult and child alike. It was inspirational for me to be there that day.

For all the bad times that I had with him and the struggles of getting past it, all I have to do now is look at this picture and see what the divine has given me since my memory of the past. And it is so very simple.

The gift of time.

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