Evi Wusk

His eighteenth birthday would have been yesterday.

He was only in my life for a short time, but I knew him long enough to see his sparkle, to think. . . this kid is fantastic.  He was funny, hardworking, unique, and so many other words I’ll never know.

I want to start all those sentences with “He is.”  And I want to tell him about today and yesterday and the yellow maple on my drive to work.  So while I’ve spent lots of morning pages writing, wondering, asking why he would choose to be gone–  The only thing I can do, when I’m left without words. . . is to clench hope, to write my little gratitudes.  They seem simple.  A child’s exercise.  But it’s practice for a larger shift in our orientation.

Bad thinking is insidious.

And so many things poke at our lack, jumpstarting those thoughts.  Advertising. . . assessment. . . even well-intentioned blog posts challenging us to somehow be better.  All communicate in some small little way that we need something, that we’re not enough.

My little notebook begs to differ.

Pen and paper magnify the enough, and I wonder at how I’ve been missing it, forgetting the marvel of a faucet or the holy-crap-that’s-awesomeness of a sticky note.  I want to train my eyes to see, maybe help just one more see it too–   somehow the only birthday present I can give, to a young man I miss.

• Stop, actually stop, somehow “pull over” in your day, even if it’s for 30 seconds to notice a gift.  Find a way to give back to the giver (whether that’s a person or the big G Giver).