Dear Grandma

Dear Grandma,

I write this letter to you because I know you lived near the ocean back when you were still with us. You loved the breeze that was brought to the shores of the little village you lived in.

Grandma, how clear were the waters of the sea and how blue was the sky that you lived under?

Mom would say that the waters were like clear sapphires and the sky rarely brought the trouble of bad weather.

The waters now are murky. Mama says it's from the solid wastes are dumped in a canal that leads to a little pool of water that can be reached when the tides are high enough.

Grandma, how far away from the hut was the water when you were young?

The waters now have reached the little hut we used to play in. Mama said the waters used to start from way over there - where the waters now reach my thighs when I stand to wade in the sea.

Grandma, what did the waters bring to your shores when you used to play in the sand? Did you wait for bottled messages and little shells to be washed ashore?

Mama recalled the driftwood that they - Mama, Uncle Jimmy and Auntie Leona - found which they made into a pretend boat.

The waters now would occasionally bring weird old-looking plastic that have drifted from other shores. Also, I found a jellyfish once. It had plastic string and bubble wrap tangled in it.

If the waters were blue, clean and beautiful, what made it change?

Grandma, are we to blame for the ourselves for not taking action? My teacher once let our entire class draw posters that show how we can help protect the earth but it isn't enough, is it?

Mama taught me how to put trash in the right place. Can that help, Grandma? Because I don't think it can do much. There are still lots of garbage on the streets and in the ocean. It's wrong to throw junk on the streets, much more into the water and yet there it is - plain as day.

We use paper bags now but I don't think it makes much of a difference considering it's plastic bags that are brought ashore.

Grandma, could there be any hope to make it stop? The changes, I mean. Can we turn back time to the point when the ocean was clean and beautiful?

I know the answer is no, but I can't help but dream of the time when everything was fine.

Grandma, is it wrong for me to wish that we could've done something better about the problem? We have the means and people to help us but why didn't we save our oceans, our Earth, our home?

I hate it when people say, "I wish the world was kinder to me." I think it's supposed to be, "I wish we were kinder to the world." It makes more sense.

Love, your Granddaughter