We Released a Sea Turtle Today
In Memory of Michael Joseph Westergren We released a sea turtle today. It did not hurry. The waves waited. It moved with slow resolve, across sand that burned underfoot, toward a home it never stopped carrying inside itself. Not once did it turn back. It breathed the air, as all sea turtles must. Like a promise held too long, then finally, let go. We watched the tide claim it one breath, its shape folding into water, as if it had never been anything else. They say Kemp’s Ridleys nearly disappeared, strangled by nets they couldn’t see, forgotten by systems they trusted. Still, they returned. Still, they nested. Still, they swam. So did Mike, a man with a heart, opened, twice once by scalpel, once by grief and closed again only after it had poured out everything. He knew the way back: to Corpus, to family, to sand and sky and song. He breathed deeply when he could, and fiercely when he couldn’t. He wore no armor but a bowtie, spoke plainly, and ju...