Shelly's Sand Dollar Story

Why I think I was drawn to the beach...
I had to go to the beach this summer - I mean I HAD to...completely drawn. A couple of months ago I found out that the name that I named my son (Dylan) meant son of the sea (thanks Sunshine :0)). I have been searching and searching in my mind why that had a significance to me- really couldn't think of anything except for the fact that I love the ocean and the beach and there is an instant calming effect it has on me...

Once I got to the beach, I was a woman obsessed about finding a sand dollar. I somehow thought that the hours that I spent on the beach searching and talking to my son, if I could find a sand dollar it would be some type of message that he "heard me". I looked for 2 days - up and down the beach - digging in the sand - I came up empty. The end of the second day I was crying, and thinking I was loony to even think that a communication was possible! I cried and cried and had pretty much given up hope.

We walked out one of the piers that was close to where we were staying and we saw something floating in the water. It looked something like a badminton birdie spread out just floating. I had gotten pretty upset thinking that someone had just thrown trash into the ocean. I thought it was definitely something man-made. Then we were walking back and on the beach there were hundreds of these things...we thought they might be some type of jelly fish so we kept our distance, but stopped to look at each and every one of them. We went back in our hotel, and I felt pretty defeated about finding the sand dollar and had pretty much decided that I had lost it about thinking that a sand dollar could represent ANYTHING.

The next day we asked a local what those "badminton things" were in the water. They were *baby* sand dollars. I didn't find just one - I found hundreds of them! When they mature, they loose the tentacle like things and look more like the shell that you find on the beach... I felt more than a wave. So I just cried some more. Just wanted to share.
((hugs))
Shelly

p.s. If you don't know what a sand dollar is, or what one looks like go to http://www.seashells.com/dried.htm. There is also a legend that goes with them...I guess that was why I was so intent on finding *one*. Instead I found many..