I did my work. I sat with baby Celeste in my lap in the evening, and we listened to Mommy play her piano. I read more when I could. and I waited.
What was I waiting for?
The following spring I began to take walks in the woods again, but for the longest time. I avoided what had been my special place. Finally. I got up enough nerve to go there, and when I looked at it now, it seemed innocuous, so common to the rest of the forest. There were many places where the pine trees shaded the ground and where the ground was matted in a carpet of fallen needles and smelled as redolent and fresh as this one. I thought.
And I thought. The truth is, all our special places come from inside us. Something within makes them special for us, and when that changes, they change. Beauty surprised was the most impressive because of what exploded in our hearts when we confronted it, whether it was an unexpected waterfall, a doe, a beautiful bird. Once we had seen it and seen it again, it was still beautiful, but it was different, as different as a magnificent animal stuffed was from the animal or a painting of a beautiful place was from the place itself. Something of it was captured forever, but it would never be what it was in the beginning, that first time.
I wanted to tell Mommy that all this awareness had come to be without my being told, but then I thought. Maybe that's where the spirits really are, inside us. Maybe she was right, and maybe when we realize it, surrender to it, believe in it. They appear.
Had I ever really believed, or was I like Noble. skeptical? Sometimes desire can be greater than the thing itself. You make it into something beyond what it is, and then you suffer when you face reality. Was it less painful to never fantasize, never believe, and never be disappointed? Or was that an empty life, a life with shadows that never took any form, clouds that never had any interesting shapes, winds that were only winds and carried no voices?
What would be baby Celeste's world, her choices, her visions?
One late afternoon, that time when daylight is caught for a final moment under the impending curtain of night, that special time we call twilight. Mommy permitted me to take baby Celeste outside for a little walk. This time Mommy didn't come with us as she always did.
For a moment that made me hesitant. What had she been told? Why was she not accompanying us outside?
We left the house. Baby Celeste clung to my hand and looked at even-thing with dazzling eyes. I had no special direction in which to walk the baby, but for some reason, we turned right and slowly made our way to the little cemetery. The moment she saw it, she was intrigued. When I let go of her hand, she entered and went straight for the tombstones. She paused. looked at them. and then she reached out slowly and she put her tiny hands on the embossed hands of Infant Jordan.
I watched, mesmerized.
She turned to me, keeping her hands pressed to the stone, and she smiled. Had she felt them move?
I held my breath and watched.
And then I felt something, some warm touch on the back of my neck, and turned toward the oncoming shadows marching out of the woods toward us, slowly bringing the stars out of the sky with every step they took.
Leading them was Daddy.
And Noble.
And all our spiritual ancestors.
They were coming to make us a family again. They were coming to welcome me home.