Yes, growing up on the island was quite simple. It was like a small country town surrounded by water and instead of open playing fields, we had a vast ocean, streaming waters and the tides. I can still feel the warmth of the wind lying on the bow of the boat as we slowly cruised through the outer islands, Woman Key and the Marquesses.

I didn’t know much about boating or driving a boat, but I sure knew how to ride and feel the sun and feel God. All of this relates to memories of God and me, and those are still with me in and through him.

We had only two main streets on the island, Duvall and Truman. Truman was named after Harry Truman, who had his little White House there. He used to love to walk to Duvall Street, which had little shops. Back then, they were more like general stores. We had only a couple of restaurants.

President Truman used to love to come down from Washington and spend time there with its small pastel cottages, beautiful ponds, flowers everywhere, the scent of Frangi Pangi in the vibrant Bougainvillea, pink and purple, and the Birds of Paradise.

We had a coffee mill then. It would grind Cuban coffee and you could smell it throughout the island in the early morning on the way to school, where I attended Saint Mary’s grade school and Mary Immaculate High. Both of those were on Truman Avenue.

Truman and Duvall streets are imprinted within my heart and mind — bike rides up and down in the sun to the beach. They say Duval Street is a mile long, but it’s the only street that goes from ocean to ocean, both the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic. The Islanders were quite proud of that.

As well as many things, almost everything in life on the island was special and sacred. We would sit on our front porches; each one had a nickname. Mine was named Cocky. I’m not sure where my school friends got that from. Maybe because I was tall and lanky and appeared to be cocky.

Each day, as a small class, year by year, we grew up together, everyone knowing each other. It was golden and it was many years of a beautiful life. I’ll never forget Miss Ellie Nodine. She was a teacher, not at the Catholic high school but at the public one. But she had a gleam in her eye, and everyone knew Ellie.

I remember when she was sick and we went to her cottage to see her and to sit with her. My mother, Carridad, which means Charity, was a compassionate and charitable soul to all she met. She was a joy. Miss Ellie died and she was one of the last of her generation. And she was filled with God. She attended the old Stone Methodist Church.

We had a lot of churches on the island, some tucked away in the small side streets in the historic district. But I remember every one of them on my bike, weaving through each lane, each cross street, most of them only small enough for one car to pass. Still so beautiful now.

Did I leave my world behind? Did I leave everything that was so beautiful for me? I imagine physically so, but not in my soul and spirit. Because I carry every crack in the sidewalk, every scent of the flower, every pedal of the bike, every smile, every friend and cousin, my aunt who is still living there. I carry them with me.

Sometimes it feels so lonely because I was never alone. But I know that our Lord our God was preparing me through such a quiet life of peace, hidden on an island, as far south as you could go. This was to prepare me for who and what he has called me to be in him. May I honor and live it through the memories of my past, the sunlit days, the ocean, in every season, in every warm and cold breeze. In all the love that I felt through you, Lord, for you were in everything and everywhere, and in the joys of the seeds planted golden.

And I am thankful for the last blessing that I would like to share, and that was riding the bicycle at the age of 5 or 6. My cousin Richard and I would take our little bikes and ride them around the island, along the ocean, down the beach and through the streets. We knew where we were going; we couldn’t get lost and anyone could find us.

He was my best childhood friend. Every day we grew up together till college and he still lives today. His father, my uncle Frank, died at the age of 101 in late January, and I returned after three years to the island. It was painful to do so at first, but I did it anyway. I had to face what I had left behind to see more clearly where God wanted to lead me.

We can’t change our past. We can’t forget it. We can’t forget where we came from because it’s within us. I don’t want to be someone else. I want to be who God created me to be in every moment of my life, in every weakness and every strength of his.

And this is why, because I was given so much love from parents and grandparents, family, uncles and aunts who taught me the value of family and the commitment to friendships. Although I am imperfect, I am true to this one thing, and that is love. And that love, the love of God, calls us to perfection each day, in the memories, in the present, and in preparation for the future. The world I left behind, but the island is still in me.