“Strong winds buffet the sea oats and tall dune grasses, tossing sand and seabirds where it will, winding my sister's golden hair into sunlit spirals of silk until it becomes the only good memory I have of her -- the only memory I allowed myself to keep.”

“But there is room now in my heart for more memories, carved by a letting go that I could find only by coming home to a place I'd never been.”

“A great man once wrote, "Absence diminishes small loves and increases great ones, as the wind blows out the candle and blows up the bonfire." If only I were as eloquent as Mr. de la Rochefoucauld...I miss you, I miss you, I miss you. And I want you. And I need your kiss. And your touch on my skin like a man needs water. Always.”

“Storms bring the detritus of other people's lives into our own, a reminder that we are not alone, and of how truly insignificant we are. The indiscriminating waves had brutalized the shore, tossing pieces of splintered timber, an intact china teacup, and a gentleman's watch—still with its cover and chain—onto my beloved beach, each coming to rest as if placed gently in the sand as a shopkeeper would display his wares. As I rubbed my thumb over the smooth lip of the china cup, I thought of how someone's loss had become my gain, of how the tide would roll in and out again as if nothing had changed, and how sometimes the separation between endings and beginnings is so small that they seem to run together like the ocean's waves.”

“I can not regret what I have learned. Regardless of what you decide and what becomes of us, it will not change this belief, and whatever children I may have, I will try to teach them this: that life is meant to be more than existence. Fight for and hold on to your passion, whatever it is, but surrender gracefully when the passion is well spent. For it is through loss that we learn, and grief that we grow stronger, and living that we learn how to love. Everything is a choice, and by avoiding choices, one not only ensures that a wrong decision won't be made, but also steals a soul's chance to live, to learn, and to love.”

“At the dune line, just before the whispering stands of sea oats and dune grass began, the sand was as damp and cold as the skin of a snake under my feet.”

“Death and loss, they plague you. So do memories. Like the Mississippi's incessant slap against the levees, they creep up with deceptive sweetness before grabbing your heart and pulling it under.”