Jesus,

I don’t ever want to forget.

Never let me forget how you have made my life and called it good. Never let me look back and say you didn’t care–because you do. Or say you never blessed me–because you did.

Snow squeaking, lungs on fire, with sunshine splashing across white, making it flash.

Gray hair falling over her face as she leans on the table, steadying herself, stretching to see over the piece of cardboard curtain. “It was just like God threw a thousand diamonds across the lake yesterday.” Yes. Yes. Just like that.

Medications and laughter and Glen at the coffee table, poking his head in my office to tease me. Those blasted combinations on the filing cabinet that always get stuck.

Lost lab coolers and broken fax machines that never get fixed. Housemates that change every 5 weeks. Pregnancy tests and blood work.

Chopping wood with my red axe.

Kneeling over the fish net, one hand pinching between the eyes, the other with the silver nail, pushing the nylon away from the scales without tearing.

I build an alter with all of it.

But it’s not just those things that I want to remember and never forget.

Let me remember the late nights. The cancelled planes. The aching heart moments. The moments when I have to say no and the phone clicks down hard.

I know I will want to remember those too some day.

I will want to remember how I didn’t know what I was doing or what was the best thing to say. I will remember how sometimes I felt so frustrated because I felt helpless to change things. I will remember how some days I did the wrong thing and some days I did exactly what I should have.

And when I remember it all let me never say it was not good.

Love your very own,

Esta