When I was growing up there was a girl that lived down the street.  We met in the usual way, our parents holding our hands talking to one another while we stared bug-eyed and apprehensive, slightly obscured by their hips.  The exact memories of those early days have left me but I still remember the feelings.  Warmth and kindness beyond measure.  Secrets that I was sworn to keep but were forgotten as the days turned to months and eventually years.  I never told anyone.  

As we became teenagers, she became a handsome young woman.  Hard for me to define her looks as such because they never mattered much to me.  I never thought of her in that manner.  We loved one another deeply but we weren’t in love because that one seemed too flimsy and easily broken.  A passing fancy at best, a distraction from our dull daily routines at worst.

What stood out most to me about her was her kindness and that despite the fact that I had been there through every moment of her life, there was something I never knew about her.  Something that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.  I couldn’t put a word to it at no matter how many hours we spent together.  No one else noticed it.  They loved her just the same as I did.  She never had a bad word for anyone and was always helpful.  

I remember asking her how she did it.  She laughed and said she just did.  I asked her if she was an angel.  She laughed again, a sound akin to Christmas bells and asked “Well then where are my wings?” 

It would be a year later when she left with her family.  I never saw her again and though I acquitted myself admirably at our parting, I still feel like there’s more that needs to be said.  I still turn to her sometimes.  It might be easier if I could hate her for the emptiness in my heart but I can’t.  

It’s my twenty-first birthday today and seven long white feathers have arrived in the mail for me.