“There were moments when I understood that there was nothing much I was going to understand or figure out. There was simply the present moment, awareness, impermanence, birdsong, love. There is no fixing this setup here. It seems broken and ruined at times, but it isn’t: it’s simply the nature of human life.”
— Anne Lamott, Almost Everything: Notes on Hope
In an alternate universe, we’re celebrating Eli’s entry into adulthood.
This evening he’ll choose the location for a festive supper. It’ll probably be a Chinese buffet.
Oh no, but we’re under a stay-at-home order… Wait, this is an alternate universe without a pandemic and self-quarantine. So Chinese buffet it is!
Eli will stack his plate with sweet and sour chicken and slices of pizza (no judgment, that’s always been his go-to Chinese buffet meal). Then he’ll wash it all down with a lemon-lime soda.
It’s Spring Break of his senior year of high school. We’re visiting a relative, probably somewhere on the coast. Eli’s girlfriend is with us. They’re texting love sonnets back and forth to one another from the backseat of our car.
We’re probing them both about their post-graduation plans.
Will Eli attend Evergreen College in Washington? He’s loved the Pacific Northwest ever since he and I visited for his 13th birthday. Evergreen has offered him a full scholarship. Why wouldn’t they?
But his girlfriend, a quiet girl filled with immense potential, plans to stay closer to home. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, but they’re not sure they want to test that proverb. Besides, Eli’s also been guaranteed a full ride to a handful of state schools and one nearby private college. With his characteristic nonchalance, he’s both detached and pensive about the upcoming decision. He just wants to pursue his passion for creative writing.
Our family still lives on Jefferson Street, except for Jairo, who is enjoying college life away from home. This year marks twenty-five years of residing on one street. Twenty-five years. Who would’ve thought my love-hate relationship with LaGrange would have lasted this long?
Who would’ve thought?
There is no alternate universe. Today is April 7. It would have been Eli’s 18th birthday. While the living are exhorted to practice six feet of “social distancing,” we visited our prematurely deceased son from a different measurement of six feet.
Who would’ve thought?
My mind often wanders as I imagine what it would have been like to have Eli at home during his senior year of high school, this year when everything is being truncated by a menacing pandemic.
I’m sure he’d be home reading and writing, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the world is burning. But deep in Eli’s contemplative heart, he’d ponder the implications of an unforeseeable future.
Eli’s creative curiosity would lead him away from boredom toward a fantastical and original world of profound poetry and prose.
Who would’ve thought?
On this challenging day, Charlotte and I walked the hallowed grounds of the cemetery, where we bid earthly farewell to young Eli.
Memories resurrect, and my heart floats into a sky filled with melancholy clouds and a sun of loving warmth. Holding my head up, I see a hawk effortlessly glide above, and I am at peace. Why do I often see Eli in the appearance of a solitary bird?
Who would’ve thought?
As Anne Lamott says, there is only “the present moment, awareness, impermanence, birdsong, love.”
The present can be a hard gift to accept. A loving heart is also a broken heart. What parent who grieves the loss of a child wouldn’t move heaven and earth to rewind the unforgiving hand of time? What engaged couple ever visits a widow or widower to ask what love really means when we say, “’til death do us part”? Everyone who loves will know suffering. Yet, everyone wants to believe in happily ever after.
But the present moment, even when wrapped in the muckiness of life, is a gift of grace. Life is an invitation to be fully aware that while nothing remains, love does endure. Every day is a chance to be born again—and I mean every single day to be born again and again and again. And this is a holy gift, a daily birthday gift.
Happy birthday, Eli. You continue to be a gift to me. You teach me what it means to live in the present. Your life and legacy show me how to deepen my interconnectedness to everything seen and unseen. You are my birdsong of love.
Keep soaring, and perhaps in a parallel universe—when all that’s temporal ends—we’ll soar on eagle’s wings, and together, we’ll sing a beautiful harmony with all creation.
Written by Anton Flores. Photo taken in El Sauce, Huehuetenango, Guatemala by Bryan Babcock. Skin art by Brittany McCarty and a replica of a pencil sketching by Eli Flores.