Happy Easter!

At night on an empty beach, a woman watched as a huge Loggerhead turtle heaved herself up into the dunes to dig her nest and lay her eggs into it. Afraid of disturbing her, she left before the turtle was finished. What she found the next morning was seismic to say the least.

The woman returned to see if she could find the spot where her eggs lay hidden in the sand to mark the site as volunteers often do. But what she found were tracks leading in the wrong direction! Instead of heading back out to sea, the Loggerhead had wandered deeper into the dunes, already hot and dry in the morning sun.

There she found her: Exhausted, all but baked, her flippers caked with dried sand. The woman poured a little water onto her but she was far too heavy to budge. She ran to get a park ranger who returned with a Jeep. The ranger had the woman help flip the turtle onto her back. He then put a strap around the turtle and used the Jeep to begin dragging her, upside down. The woman watched horrified as the turtle’s mouth filled with sand and her head bent back as the Jeep made its way to the shore.

At the water’s edge, he unhooked her and turned her right side up. As the waves broke over her, she lifted her head slightly, moving her back legs. Other waves brought her further back to life until one of them made her light enough to find a foothold and push off, back into the sea.

Watching her swim slowly away and remembering her nightmare ride through the dunes, I reflected that it is sometimes hard to tell whether you are being killed or saved by the hands that turn your life upside down.”

–A story by Barbara Brown Taylor in The Other Side Magazine, March & April 2000