During the last few weeks of March, as an act of hope, I would bundle both of us up, you and me, and we would sit out on the porch in the cold sunshine and watch the traffic go by. Sometimes I talked to you about various things. Sometimes I told you the old stories. Sometimes we sat in silence. I wonder if you could see me staring at you, watching, waiting. I can sense a change in you, even though the doctors gave up hope long ago. They don’t say that, of course, but I can see it in their eyes, a kind of moving on, a kind of gentle acquiescence to the way things are. But there is something deep going on inside of you. I can sense it, the way the birds can sense an earthquake coming and lift off from their perch moments before the tremor.

Now April has arrived.

The last few days have been beautiful. The grass has sprung suddenly green. The tips of the trees, only last week brittle and cold, have grown swollen buds. John arranged some hanging baskets of flowers on the front porch and planted tomatoes in pots along the back alley. I don’t know that they’ll get enough sun there, but I try to let him do this thing since he’s come back. I don’t want to discourage him. Planting tomatoes where they might not get enough sun seems a thing too small to object to, and what if they do grow? What if they thrive? It would be nice, in July or August, to be slicing juicy tomatoes or making salsa or pasta sauce. I should see if it’s too late to plant onions.

All the time I was checking on those tomato plants out back, debating on whether or not to tell John to try another spot, I kept reaching up, touching the side of my head, feeling over and over again how the knot is still gone. I had brought you out back with me, placed you gingerly in one of the patio chairs we now have back there, and propped you up with your arms comfortable, your head leaning slightly back. When I looked over at you, I’m sure you were smiling at me, at least with your eyes, deep in your eyes, where I know your imagination is still making up stories.

There is a depth to this world I have been so unaware of throughout my entire life until now. When I look at a tree, I don’t only see the bark anymore—I can see the crevices in the bark, each a Grand Canyon, life teeming all the way in. The roots too—I can feel them spreading. I can almost sense them under me, deep in the earth, doing their work.

I am this way now because of you. There is something at work deep within you, and it’s in watching you that I’ve learned to watch the world in a new way.