I won't forget how the sun touched your hair that day; or the way the light shone out of your perfect, ancient eyes. You waited so patiently for me to capture your likeness in the kitchen. Standing tall and still, you didn't move as I committed your  two-year-old beauty to memory. 

I can't see your halo in the picture, but I know it's there.

I can feel the light of your presence everywhere.

It’s in your discarded toys, the keys I find hidden in the couch. The books scattered around your room. Your quiet heart that says so much.
 
Angel face, moments of grace dip into the everyday whenever we’re together.

I love you even when you're an angry duck, even when you raise my blood pressure.
 
I make motherhood up as I go, navigating scrapes and play dates. You learn and grow, absorbing all life’s little joys and its blows.
 
This interlude will only last so long, I know. It’s a comfort on difficult days; a worry when you demand I sing “You Are My Sunshine” for the tenth time.
 
I count my blessings as you count your toy cars.
 
I watch you throw ping pong balls around the house and stuff mini penguins in your pockets. I see the way you roughhouse with your Papa at the end of each day, giving us all the gift of laughter before bed.
 
And I marvel at the mind that dreamed all of this into existence.

I’ve always believed in some sort of higher power; a mysterious force at work in the world. I think of it as the invisible thread that ties us all together; the unseen hand that helps stitch the fabric of our lives. Sometimes I call it God; other times it’s simply the universe. I don’t feel it all that often, but I’m always aware that it’s there.
 
Today it blew me away. You can call it coincidence or put it down to chance, but I don’t really believe in those concepts. When I logged on to Facebook this morning, the first thing that popped up on my screen was a couple new pictures of my niece. Now there’s nothing strange about this in and of itself; I usually tend to see my sister’s posts at the top of my feed since we interact with each other so much.
 
What struck me was the quotation she had used to accompany her photos:
 
"The soul is healed by being with children." ~Dostoyevsky
 
It’s not really a well-known saying, as far as I can tell. But I recognized it right away. Why? Because I had used it to caption a photo of my daughter on Facebook. Huh, that’s funny, I thought to myself. I guess we have similar taste when it comes to literary quotes. Must be in the genes!
 
But there was more to it. I remembered the image of my daughter I had posted: she was in a spirited mood that day, hiding behind the sheer drapes in my sister’s living room. The play of the light combined with the far-off look in her eyes gave the photo an ethereal, otherworldly feel. She looked like she was caught between two dimensions.
 
I realized that I had taken the photo about a year ago, definitely at the same time of year, since I remembered us housesitting for my sister and her hubby. On a purely psychic whim, I clicked on the “On this Day” feature on Facebook that lets you see what’s happened on the same day in past years of your life.
 
I want to point out that although I’m signed up to receive this purely nostalgic update every day, the notification always pops up at night, so I hadn’t had a chance to see it yet. Even before I clicked, I knew what I would see:
 
March 23, 2015
"The soul is healed by being with children." ~Dostoyevsky










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​So not only did my sister and I pick the same (somewhat obscure) quote to accompany pictures of our daughters, but we posted it on the exact same day, one year apart.
 
I immediately thought that she had somehow seen my old photo pop up in her feed. Maybe she just liked the quote and decided to use it. Only she didn’t. She was never tagged in it.
 
So here we have this “meaningful coincidence.” It’s not a huge thing, but to me it’s a weird and wondrous event all the same. It feels strange because we can’t explain it in conventional ways. It definitely makes me think that there must be more happening on this earth than we understand.
 
My sister believes it could be some sort of message from the universe, and I tend to agree. What it means, we can only guess at.
 
A couple weeks ago she sent me a photo of my niece dressed up in cute outfit that used to belong to my daughter. The bow-tie onesie and pink skirt didn’t come together as a set. It struck me because I remembered my daughter wearing the exact same combination of clothes. They didn’t really go together, but babies look cute in pretty much anything.
 
When I put the photos of our little girls side by side and sent them to my sister, she was surprised. She had put the outfit together completely at random, and didn’t remember my daughter sporting the same look.
 
All these little synchronicities, signs and similarities in our mothering experiences are a comfort to me. They remind me that it’s a blessing to go on this parenting journey in tandem with her.
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I’m excited that our daughters will get to grow up together. They aren’t that far apart in age, and funnily enough, they also share the same star sign and colouring.
 
Whatever the future holds for them, I hope they they become kindred spirits and friends, just like their mothers. I also hope they keep their hearts and minds open to all of life’s possibilities and beautiful mysteries.
 
As for me, I just have one simple message I’d like to send back to my friend, the universe:
 
I’m listening.