Agates In The Sand

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I was very close to my wife’s extraordinary aunt, Gail (she introduced us, in fact). She died two years ago, at the age of sixty-seven, after a long struggle with cancer, leaving us in quite an emotional state.

It was only after she died that I discovered her poem “Companions on the Beach”, upon which this song is based. It was written by Gail and her old friend Stella Moran, after the death of Gail’s mother and husband. Until then, I’d thought that Gail didn’t have an artistic bone in her body… Quite a surprise.

As an emotional release after our loss, I turned the poem into this song. The song chokes me up a bit, as it reminds me of our lost Gail.

Her friend Stella loves to collect agates on the beaches of Oregon, where she lives, but the song is really about the loss of our loved ones, and expresses an optimism that God will remember them in the resurrection to come.

Perhaps, then, I can play this song for Gail too. She hasn’t heard it...

...yet.