Days

9:10 pm
Home from Atlanta after gathering for Elaine's memorial service

"Go airplane, Go!" Cici giggles. She is almost two, sitting next to me on her mother's lap on the plane. We are strangers but I feel as if we have met before. She delights in opening and shutting the window shade, marveling at the sky and pointing to the clouds, repeating words over and over again to herself. "Cloud, wing, go airplane, go." She smiles. She grabs my hand and her mother shoots me an apologetic look, but I don't mind. "Care," she calls me, "Care, look! Please! Thank You! Sky!" She smiles shyly and drops my hand, moving on to her next adventure.

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Today I said goodbye to someone who left too soon, and hello to someone who has just arrived. I left one family and said hello to another family. I flew through the sky that covers us all, no matter where we are.

Elaine had time to dictate her life to her loved ones and preserve it in a journal. I read her thoughts today, and among the many words and phrases that stuck out, one set of suggestions caught my eye. "Pay attention and love life," she wrote. Pay attention. Love life.

I write this wearing her worn-in purple fleece, an item I think I remember her wearing. She wanted each of us to have a part of her, to carry with us as we travel and explore and attempt to bring as much spirit and joy to the world as she did. The fleece reminds me of a fleece my grandfather owned, a turquoise patagonia (Jenni, this clothes stuff is more on your turf, perhaps I will let you take it from here). We have several wonderful shots of him standing in the park wearing his green fleece and waving, to whom I not sure. He looks away from the camera but his smile is wide, full of love, his eyes shining. He looks like he is paying attention. He looks ready for anything.

When I said goodbye to mom and dad and Jess in the airport, it felt different. I felt like an adult as I clutched my own plane ticket and watched their threesome melt away. I guess it's that time, to get older, to fly.

But for now I'm just going to try and remember the look on Cicis face as she watched the sky. I'm going to pay attention and love life. Just as Elaine would have wanted.


"Days," Billy Collins.

Each one is a gift, no doubt,
mysteriously placed in your waking hand
or set upon your forehead
moments before you open your eyes.

Today begins cold and bright,
the ground heavy with snow
and the thick masonry of ice,
the sun glinting off the turrets of clouds.

Through the calm eye of the window
everything is in its place
but so precariously
this day might be resting somehow

on the one before it,
all the days of the past stacked high
like the impossible tower of dishes
entertainers used to build on stage.

No wonder you find yourself
perched on the top of a tall ladder
hoping to add one more.
Just another Wednesday,

you whisper,
then holding your breath,
place this cup on yesterday's saucer
without the slightest clink.