If you go to Atlantic Beach these days you’ll see a bunch of large beach cottages, most of them costing upwards of a million dollars. But if you travel down Atlantic Avenue – just two rows back from the beach - you’ll see something different – Hadley Hall. The beach house is nothing fancy. The front porch is sagging and has more then a few loose boards. The old dark green siding has faded and showing it’s age. The paint is peeling on the front railing and it is missing some slats. But to me, that cottage is worth more then any million dollar home on the Island. That sagging front porch is where I learned to shag to the sounds of beach music with my dad when I was a little girl. Inside, with the rich knotty pine walls, is where I spent many I night playing seven up, board games and UNO with friends and family. The downstairs bedroom is where my two best girlfriends and I stayed for a week and a half after junior year of college – and had the best vacation I’ve ever had. The street in front of the house is where my cousins and I set off fire works every year on the fourth of July. The lawn with the sand spurs all it in is where my sister and I searched for Easter eggs year after year. The kitchen, with it’s rusted refrigerator and stove that’s so old I don’t how to work it, is where my mom and dad cooked pancakes and spaghetti diners for the family. And the back porch, where we hung our bathing suits and wet towels, is where when I was only 5 years old I got married – to the 7 year old boy who was my best friend. So many memories are contained in that house.

Two years ago my father told me he was going to sell his portion of the beach house to my uncle, and so when I left for the last time in October of 2006 – I cried. I cried not just because I was losing the house, but because I was losing a part of my childhood and the place I had always assumed my children would grow up as well. The place where my children would sit on the porch and rock and listen to the beach music or where they would play with their friends. Just a month ago my dad told me the sell was final, and even though I understood the reasons, and hadn’t been back in two years – my heart still broke. That beach house was no longer mine.

But in a way it still is, and always will be, mine. It’s mine in my heart and in my memories. And I will always be a part of it, in the in sand I tracked in, the wear on the furniture and the floors, and the footprints I left behind.

It’s up to me to hold those memories dear, and to continue to make new ones with family – just not at Hadley Hall.