Sand Dollars

My mother and father had never been anywhere exotic in their entire lives, so I can only imagine how they must have felt when they arrived on Bequia for the very first time! They had traveled to the relatively unknown little island with their friends David and Norah in the early 70’s, and fallen in love before the Friendship Rose had even docked at Port Elizabeth. This love for Bequia and its people caused my parents to make some major changes in their lives, changes that happened partly because of sand dollars.

Sand dollars are flat sea urchins that live on the ocean floor, burrowing into the sand for protection. They are able to move across the sand using their spines, eating algae with a mouth located at the bottom of their bodies. Although they look and feel fragile, these urchins are actually one of the sea’s stronger creatures.

While on Bequia my dad and his friend David (also an Anglican minister) discovered sand dollars strewn on the beaches, and decided to take some back to Canada. They were somewhat familiar with the Christian interpretation of the flat sea urchins, and made it their business to learn more. Sand dollar legend is filled with Christian symbolism; the five holes in the shell represent the crucifixion, the formation in the centre is the star of Bethlehem and the petal-like pattern on the top of the shell depicts an Easter lily. Inside the five-fold radial body are dove-shaped structures, and these little doves are what prompted the two pastors to share Bequia’s sand dollars with their parishioners at home.

During the course of that first visit, my parents and their friends gathered two large buckets of sun-bleached sand dollars and toted them back to Canada along with their luggage. On Easter Sunday that year each parishioner was given a sand dollar all the way from Bequia, along with a demonstration outlining the religious symbolism of the pretty creatures from the sea. My father broke one of the sand dollars open and extracted the little white “doves”, birds that represent peace on earth. This introduction to the church’s parishioners of something interesting found on a small dot in the sea called “Bequia” prompted many talks about the island and its people, and a seed was planted. It wasn’t long before the “Friends of Bequia” came into being, an organization that gradually blossomed into the “Bequia Mission”.

I myself am not a particularly religious person, especially when it comes to symbolism. I enjoyed dad’s presentation of the sand dollars, but personally thought the little doves looked more like dainty angels. (Those little shapes are actually the urchin’s teeth, present in each of the creature’s five sections to grind and chew its food.) I secretly preferred the non-religious folklore that sand dollars are coins lost by mermaids, but I kept that one to myself!

I traveled to Bequia for the first time a few years after the sand dollar presentation at my father’s church, and have always kept an eye out for the delicate urchins. I don’t see them as often as I used to, but whenever I DO spot a sand dollar it reminds me of my father, and his long-ago first visit to Bequia, a visit that changed both our lives forever.