It’s an understatement to say November 10th was a terrible day.

It’s the date Jim was handed a radiologist’s report and read the words “metastatic disease.” And then the devastated two of us headed out of a Boston hospital into a cold, black early night.  If any color seeped from that night’s sunset, I didn’t see it.

No light.  No hope.

If that day had not come as it did, engendering all the days in between, then this year I would not have found myself celebrating the November 10th birthday of a little girl who hadn’t yet been born on that deeply dark day.

I met her mom only because the universe’s butterfly wing machinations somehow had deposited the two of us on the same stage last spring to tell our stories about “Coming Home.”  Her story was about bringing her newborn daughter home from the hospital. Mine was about bringing my husband home to die, four endless short months after that November 10th.

And after watching her daughter blow out the candles on her Elmo cake–flickering lights laced with wishes, the very definition of hope–I headed back to a new home Jim never saw, complete with a puppy he never knew.

Within sight of the same Boston hospital where my young husband received the news he certainly would soon die, I caught a glimpse of old and new perfectly lit by a stunning sky.  The sunset lingered, turning to bright orange and purple.  Violet light burst from the base of my favorite bridge. Its cables fanned out against the lipstick sunset, echoing Old Ironsides’ gorgeously complicated rigging.

Even on this day, it’s impossible not to feel buoyed by such a sight.

Oh, and my lovely little friend, born November 10, is Lucia Esperanza.

Light and hope.