1:38 A.M.

My church sends out a greeting on the church thread each time someone has a birthday. Today, June 2nd was someone’s birthday. I sent an emoji happy birthday and then checked Marco Polo. My friend was down by the creek in her back yard and had recorded a video for me. As I made myself some popcorn after washing off the lake water and sand from the days’ adventure, I watched and listened to her describe her day. But then her voice countenance changed and I stopped what I was doing and stared at the screen. My smiled faded when I saw tears brimming.

Today, June 2nd, eleven years ago was the last full day my friend got to spend with her little girl before she flew away to heaven. She was two years old. I never got to meet her but she leaves little heart clues that so many of us spot and we take pictures and send them to her mother. It feels like a whisper from the other side. I’ve seen hearts in the shape of rocks, shadows on the wall, soap suds. I stop and smile and remember what I never knew because her mother is a friend of mine and it matters to know someone is thinking of her.

When something happens that shakes the earth around your feet, the time it happens stamps itself loudly on your heart. Ch-CHUNG. When you see that time on that date it takes the breath out of your lungs for a heartbeat….or two. My friends’ little girl visited the creek behind their house with her mama when she shared the Earth and today her mama went to that same creek and the water soothed the tender shape left by the only one human that could ever fill it.

I usually write about it on this day but I don’t know what to say anymore. I understood. To say nothing felt like a kind of ending to the declaration that she’d ever been here. To say something felt like not enough to honor her that didn’t sound hollow or stale or blah, blah, blah…..

I love the way my friend lives in the world. She is a saver of birds, the rescuer of spiders, the tap, tap, tap to a different inner world that comes along quietly next to the magic I find in tiny flowers and moss on rocks. I sit and think how I want to do something to remember June 2nd and 1:38 a.m. on June 3rd. The biggest pieces of my heart are my words. So, this my dear friend, is to cast a heart flower on the water and watch it tumble and dance in honor of HER. And to say…..I am there with you.