Yesterday I did the thing and waited for a bird or butterfly to cross my path but there were only mosquitoes. Perhaps you were holding a class discussion on Chaucer. Or Socrates needed a bridge partner. Maybe breaking free from all who loved you was exactly what the doctor ordered . Regardless, please do not think that because you are dead, you are free from earthly constraints. If I have a responsibility to honor your legacy, the least you could do is show up as a sparrow.

The garden brings me no joy. It’s hot and your seven kaftans don’t smell like you anymore. They reek of that cheap detergent Ross picked up. You were always so sensitive to chemicals. Everything except that God awful Opium by Yves Saint Laurent . I’ll stare at the bathroom door from which the kaftans hang and ponder this discrepancy for hours. You were always such an enigma. Not that, but now this, honey– this is okay.

At work a colleague is speaking. Amanda. Amanda goes on about lip fillers. Amanda shows me pictures of nail art and Fendi knock-offs. It feels cruel that I spend more waking hours with Amanda than I do any other being. Where is my compassion? I can’t seem to locate it– almost as if it fell out of my bag. But I’m boring as well. Amanda doesn’t care that I see God in trees or find solace by the sea. Amanda drinks Red Bull, I cry in the toilet. What does it matter if you’re gone? Besides, I could learn from Amanda. Amanda is the walking embodiment of appreciation. Pumpkin Spice in a latte, how a coat gracefully falls on a wooden hanger– a new brand of breath mints. It’s actually incredible what life does to Amanda. Maybe I should have taken pleasure in breath mints when you were here. That would have lifted us both up. If I could have just dropped the state of the world for a hot second and talked about anything but.

On really bad days I head for the stationery room and pretend to do things. It’s shocking how many hours you can spend “organizing” the same stack of notebooks. Today everyone is working from home so I meander. Linger. Stare at your ring with the Coral stone. It just doesn’t feel like “you”. Even with the acrylics. Tomorrow I’ll wear your necklace with the giant balls instead.

“Why don’t we ever have raw honey in this office?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s really frustrating.”

“Did you put a request in?”

“Three times.”

I keep stumbling into “real life” conversations that pull me further and further away. Can feel you in my bones giving me that look. It silently screams what are you doing? What do you want? Why do you give your power away so easily? In my mind we duke it out. Most people are just doing the best they can, I say. But you’re not having it. We have a back and forth about the true meaning of success where you insist my current definition is shallow, that external validation means squat if I’m not right with myself.

And then, a shift.

It’s after work on a Tuesday evening, and a small face is vying for my attention. Instead of showing up as a sparrow, you weave your way into the warm, clammy hand of this child. You whisper this life is never going to be what I want, but that it may give me what I need. You stress redemption is on the other side of shame. You remind me not to neglect my plants. That I should hug my body. Share, you say. Share everything. Scoop up this giant mystery with both hands and marvel at how stunning, intense, and horrendous it truly is. No matter how inconsequential my life feels, you beg me to trust that the human heart is a masterpiece. Whether it be our species or another, the world will one day make sense again because of how I listen, how I take stock, and how I didn’t kill that spider. You tell me to compliment my sister and mean it. That I should try and make Ross laugh every day. That I must let my heart break repeatedly until it shatters every joyous memory into the stunning ether of eternity. You lift my face towards the sun as this child now dances around me.

Mama. Mama. Mama, I love you so.