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My Personal Favorite Photo

I thought I’d show you my personal favorite photo of all time.  Actually it’s a set of three photos.

Mai has stayed with our family off and on since she was 8 years old. Last summer we knew we wouldn’t have much more time together, as she would be be studying for her college entrance exam, so we went to spend one last day at the beach. It was one of those precious days where everyone knows the fun won’t last forever. Mai has a huge thing for being in or near water, so she was in her element, and we all had a great time, but that’s not why it’s my favorite series of photos.

I had research sand sculpture on the web the night before, and come up with the idea for a sand gecko. It seemed one of the easiest projects for us novices, so I printed out a sample photo, and we used it for a pattern. It turned out to be much more work than we had anticipated, and we spent about three happy hours on it. He wasn’t much to look at, but by the time we were finished we felt we had bonded with friend gecko, and were quite proud of our creative genius, but there’s actually a much deeper reason I love these snapshots.

By the time we finally finished our handiwork and took this photo of daughter Elizabeth and Mai it was quite late in the afternoon. Most of the people around us had drug their surfboards and ice chests back up the embankment to their cars and driven home. By the time we had fired up the coals for the BBQ and were eating our marinated chicken, we were completely alone, it was just us and the setting sun watching the surf come up just a little higher with each wave. We felt like queens with a private beach all to ourselves. The beach was quite wide, and we were up against the stone wall for the embankment, far from the actual surf.
Then, just as we were starting to think about packing up, we were suddenly standing in about 3 inches of sea water, and there was no sand to be seen. The waves were splashing at our knees as we dashed furiously around trying to fish our belongings out of the current before they washed out to sea. We had to slosh about 30 yards along the beach to reach the stairs up to the car, and of course had to make several trips before we were quite packed up and all sitting in the car, out of breath and thoroughly spooked.

When we heard what had actually happened, we were even more spooked. It turned out there had been an earthquake far out at sea, and a tsunami warning had been issued. The tsunami had actually come on shore, but was only 2 cm. high, so hadn’t done any damage.

We had been playing on the beach all day with no radio, and there had been no audible warning signal. I suppose some of the others had heard and gone home, explaining why we ended up alone toward evening. If a 2cm. tsunami caused the waves to be splashing at our knees, what would 10 cm. have been like? I love these photos because they remind me how fragile life really is. I was reminded to be thankful for each day God gives us, and also, to always take a radio to the beach!

Tags: favorite photo, sand sculpture, tsunami

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