"Here-a-comes," she sang softly ...

... to each wave, each curl of foam, rushing and then shushing their way up the sand and over her small rubber boots. Nora loved the ocean so much, we had to pry her Imperial Smallness from the tide and toss her over our shoulders, wailing in her waterlogged overalls, for the long hike up the hill each day.

"Sit?" she asked from the backseat, eyes wide, when we rounded the corner into town on that first afternoon and the sea spread out across our view. We had to explain that the shiny expanse in front of us was water, that we'd go down to the sand and bring her new green bucket and a snack.

The snack went uneaten, the bucket unused. Nora ran flat out toward the waves, fearless and fascinated. It took the village to attempt to help her get her fill, taking shifts, our bare feet bracketing her booted ones in the bitterly cold Pacific.



Eventually, Nora spent some time on the beach, exploring the curiosity of sandy toes and driftwood ...




... and she fell painfully in love with kites, running after them with her arms reaching upward, all those colors rippling on the wind and sailing "up up uppie!"



The sea air proved itself the miracle salve that it's often said to be. Every day, she took the longest naps of her short life, three solid hours of limp-limbed, open-mouthed slumber. She'd wake to the whole T____ tribe under one roof. Mama loved this part - this idea that Nora's growing story is one in which she's lodged firmly within a family, that her landscape stretches beyond her parents, that she belongs to multiple arms and eyes whose love for her is as wide and deep as the sea.