I bit my lip hard to keep the tears from coming. But this never really works, not for me anyway. I was a rare but lusty crier, with big, fat drops rolling down in a bountiful flow. It was annoying and I’m sure it said something about me that I stubbornly did not acknowledge. But here I was, trying to hold back my dam of sorrow as people congratulated me on my “life’s work”. If only they knew. If only anyone knew. But the only “ones” that knew were the waves on my beach and only because they dragged it out of me and promised to hold it in the din of each crash onto the beach.