Forgive my heart in its absence today - it is with our birthday angel, Sophie Salome.

I planned to have something written today. I didn't imagine this much of the day could have gone by without an outpouring of words. But, I also didn't imagine that the pain would be so very real. That the sadness would be profound to the point of paralysis. That it would seep into every crevice and unearth every nuanced bit of myself. Uprooted.

So, I will share two stories with you on this day.

There is a boy at my school, an eighth grader that was in my class last year. He is tall, gangly, almost disturbingly patriotic, and bordering on strange. But, as with most of my children, goodness in his heart is visible in all that he does. Last week, on the playground, he walked up to me and said, "Hey Mrs. Bayly, would you like to read my biography?" The children had interviewed loved ones to garner information about life-changing experiences. Obviously, as this child must have taken pride in his work, I replied with an enthusiastic, "Yes." After rooting through his backpack for many long impatient minutes on my part, he thrust at me two crumpled sheets of typed writing. This was a story about his mother, and sister, Christine. He was hovering over my silently crying body, as I read the story of his sister, a still born baby. He wrote of how this baby was a part of his life, and about his mother's reactions, and her urge henceforth to be an even more caring and trusting mother. Attention span of a typical preteen, he ran off to play basketball, pausing for a minute to look me in the eyes and asking me "Will you hold onto this for a while?" He was gone in an instant and couldn't have heard me whisper, "Sure Eric", as I looked back down at his family's story and he bolted toward the court.

As I let my students out toward their lockers the other day, one young lady gingerly plucked a piece of paper off the work station. It was a post-it note, yellow and tattered, and scrawled in light and messy pencil across its folded front was "Mrs. Bayly". A note for me? The students, before I could stop them, tore it open and read confusedly four touching lines of poetry. The writing was of nature's beauty and life's fragility. Even more confusing to all of us was the lettering at the bottom, claiming the work was from "F.P." I took the note from them, and walked the kids down to lunch, pondering the whole way who was this mysterious F.P. While I was walking out of the lunch room, a young man approached me. He was a quiet oddity in my seventh grade class later in the day. "Mrs. Bayly...that poem was from me." I replied "Craig, it is beautiful." He blushed and stood staring at me. "Craig, who is F.P.?" Craig looked at me with the endearing and quizzical expression I have been met with so many times since. "Fair Play", was Craig's reply.

"The sky is the gown of Mother Nature". -F.P.