Holidays live in every breath

Hello World, an enormous sign reads in my Swiss neighborhood. This big blue board marks the birth of a new baby boy born down the street from my home where I’m still thinking too much about death.

Nicolas is stroked across the backdrop of powdery grey-blue, silver and white flocked mountains. It is the same name as my child, and it makes me gasp while I pant up the cliff of my sunset jog. As I reach the top, I consider all the signs we pass but do not see.

Hello World. I am running cold, tired, and feeling my body at last. I am bone, muscle, wrinkles, mascara mixed with grief. I am salt against pavement, dark thoughts of two teens who have passed faster than I can run. One took her life, the other was taken by cancer. I run faster.

Hello World repeats the sign, the piece of wood. It’s repetitious in my head, stuck in my eye, even as I cry, especially as I race on. Two parents are filled with gratitude, I think. They have erected a big message, a life with their tiny hands, for all of us to see. They are joyous proof that hello, birth is right here while I search for a savior, while I ask the sky to tell me where any of us are going.