Happy Birthday Sophie

What does one write on this day? Fifteen years of staring into the dark pools of her eyes, wondering what she is thinking, what she sees and knowing that she very possibly knows all. Tracing the thin scar that lies one inch above her right eyebrow, the mark of a fall, long ago when the pool of blood under her head made me draw in my breath and out to her. Tracing the thin ridge of her nose, the faint freckles, the delicate flutter of her breath. The full beautiful lips that form no words but curve gently, rarely, in a smile. The soft, curly hair and tiny rounded shoulders, the downy hair on the nape of her neck, the straight back and gentle, graceful body. Her hands are like birds, long slender fingers untouched by labor or use, tapered like some sort of ethereal musician. What does one write on this day when she is fifteen years old? I love birthdays, my own included, but especially those of my sweet children. For Sophie, the birthday is something different, something more ephemeral, something to be seized, to mark, to be grateful for, another year, another year, another year.

Last week during a meditation I saw a mermaid swim before my eyes, undulating by me, her tail the greens and blues of legend, her hair a floating mass of curls but I couldn't see her face. I'm not sure how to describe the vision exactly, but I was filled with the immediacy of Sophie, filled with knowing that she had swum into my life, swum from my body and was on her way. I realized in the moment that she swam by, from the corner of my eye that I was wasting my time in sorrow and that there was only joy in her.

Happy Birthday, Sophie-girl!