Nani is magic.

She persuades sullen children to sleep,

breaks up fights with merely a look.

She calms fears, theirs and mine;

remembers little moments and treats them like holidays.

She’s the parent I am not as I travel the country.

Their eyes light up when she walks in the door each morning and announces her presence.

It’s a gift these days with her.

This gift, in this way, would not have been possible had he lived.

They had a plan.

A beach house on the shore and a retirement within reach.

Yes, they would have been magical, the two of them together with those three little girls.

But, it would have been a different kind of magic- one made after 12 hour-long road trips to that cottage on the island.

We don’t get to decide the gift given or choose the form it takes.

We can ponder the would have been, but all that would do is tarnish the image of what is.

So we will love this gift that comes wrapped in the package of the woman called Nani. The one, if it had worked out differently, might be a thousand miles away and instead walks through our front door each morning and brings her magic.