Today marks the second anniversary of Alex’s death. Two years. In the past, I have said that the time since feels like more than it actually has been and also like less. Not anymore. Not really. Today, I am struck mostly by how fresh the grief still feels, how clear the memories remain. I can’t believe two years have passed. Reading back through other posts I have written about our darling girl and the loss we have suffered (here, here, here, here, here), I realize that I have told you all a good deal about her — about her passion for life, her courage, her humor, her keen intelligence, her love for family and friends.
So, I thought today I would share a story from when she was just a toddler. I don’t know why this story has stuck with me so thoroughly over the years, but it has. I think of it often, and it always makes me smile.
Most of you know at this point that I am an avid birdwatcher and have been for most of my life. Starting when Alex was just an infant, I used to point out birds to her, on our feeders, when we took walks, her in her stroller and me walking our dog, or when we went on drives somewhere. I’d point out herons and hawks, chickadees and woodpeckers. Whatever. It was always fun to open her eyes to the beauty of our natural world, and living on the Cumberland Plateau, we could always find plenty to share with her.
When she was about two years old, wonderful friends of ours invited us to spend a week with them on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, in a house they had rented. With Alex being only two — this was within a month or so of her second birthday — we chose to fly, rather than drive the eleven-plus hours it would have taken us to get there. I don’t recall which airport we flew into, and honestly it doesn’t matter. Probably Norfolk? But who knows.
The plan was to pick up our rental car at the airport and then drive to the little town on the Outer Banks where we were staying. But for some reason, the airport in question proved to be frustratingly difficult to navigate. It had already been a long day of travel, and Nancy and I were tired, short-tempered, snappish. And we started bickering about how we were supposed to find our way out of the airport and onto the correct highway to take us where we wanted to go.
We stopped for a red light somewhere on the airport grounds, and, with no one behind us, we just sat there, idling, arguing, getting madder and madder.
At some point, we realized that Alex, in the back seat, strapped into her car seat, was saying something to us, repeating one word over and over again.
We both focused in at the same time and realized she was saying, “Hawk. Hawk. Hawk. Hawk. Hawk.” Turning, we saw that she was also pointing out the window as she said this. And sure enough, above a small pond beside the intersection, an Osprey was hovering. And our little naturalist had recognized it, correctly, as a hawk.
Of course, at that point, we began to laugh, our fight forgotten. “Yes, Sweetie. That’s a hawk. Very good.”
Smiles all around.

So many elements of the story appeal to me — her awareness of the world around her; her ability at age two to recognize a hawk and point it out to us, as we had been pointing them out to her; and most of all, her ability to cut through our silly argument to remind us of the things that truly mattered, namely the existence of that hawk and the reality that she was just too cute for words.
She and Erin have been the joy of our lives for the past thirty years. Yes, we grieve. We miss Alex more than we can express. The pain of losing her was, and still is, overwhelming. But both girls have brought so much light into our world. And we are getting to a place where that light, the golden memories that Nancy, Erin, and I share of our beloved child and sister, bring comfort and beauty and even a bittersweet happiness.
So, rest easy, love. We are doing all right. We miss you every day, and we love you to the moon and back. Always.