Woody and Summit came home on a Thursday night, and the next afternoon, Dan returned from a business trip. “Let’s go down to the barn to look at the new trailer,” he said. He had no idea what awaited him and it took everything in my power to shrug and say with feigned nonchalance, ”Sure.” I had left the horses inside their stalls in the barn, but opened the top of their turnout door to the outside. When we rounded the corner of the barn, Summit and Woody stuck their heads out, just as we had planned. Dan’s face ignited with surprise and joy.

“No way! No way!” The little four-year-old boy in my husband shrugged off his suit jacket and went to pet Summit.

All that mattered was that moment. Sentencing was still a week away, but I simply didn’t care anymore. What mattered was the way Grace pointed at the picture of Gram on my bedside table, saying, “Eh eh eh,” with a toddler’s insistence, until I handed her the photo. “Momma,” she said, and touched her tiny pointer finger to Gram’s face.

“No baby, that’s Grandma,” I told her.

“Momma,” she repeated.

“It looks a little like Momma, but that’s Grandma.”

Grace shook her head, pointed again. “Momma, momma, momma.” Then she brought the picture to her face and kissed it.

Gram’s presence was everywhere I went: the single brown cow in the middle of a herd of black cows, a magnificent yellow bird with a bright red head resting on a branch, sun streaking through storm clouds across the valley, the perfect country song on the radio, chocolate, wildflowers, a butterfly leading me on a hike, fruit loops in the cereal aisle, and “cheery oats.” You’ve been so great at doing Sarah, but it’s okay to just be. Slow down now. And just enjoy your life.

One morning, a few days after Grace started kissing Gram’s photo, Kalvin decided he needed to do the same. “Momma,” he said pointing at her picture.

And as with Grace, I corrected him. “No, my little Buddha Bear. That’s Grandma.”

Kalvin looked up at me with his huge earnest blue eyes, then back at the photo. “Momma.” I shrugged. Then my beautiful little boy kissed Gram’s photo and said, “Ba ba, ” meaning in Kalvin-speak, “Bye bye.” And he waved goodbye at the photograph.

My heart poured out of my chest into a puddle on the floor. I left it there.

“Yeah, buddy, bye bye.”

“Ba ba.”

If Grace was a survivor, fierce and feisty, Kalvin was pure exposed love. He assumed the best about people and the world, like his daddy, and that both inspired and terrified me.

“Yep, say, ‘See you next time Gram.’”

“Ba ba,” Kalvin answered, kissing the picture again. His face showed none of the loss and sadness I associated with what he was saying. Perhaps bye bye didn’t represent loss to him. Perhaps, because he was so much closer to Source, bye bye really meant, See you soon.

“Ba ba,” he said again and smiled.

“Yep, bye bye.” And I tried to smile too.