This kid, “S,” is graduating from college next week. Above is a 2004 photo of S collecting wedding confetti from the Great Wall of China. Next up is a Fulbright year in Paris researching Active Galactic Nuclei and then back closer to home for a PhD program at a top astrophysics program. I’m rethinking the post title and thinking I should have called it Confetti to Constellations. (There’s still time. Done.)

For a graduation event, S asked me to send “the pigeon photo” from a day at the park when we lived in Tokyo. Excursions through old photos can be an unpredictable adventure.

My heart belongs to this child (and one other who we will celebrate when he graduates in a few more years).

S is an old soul and has always been mindful of returning care to me. I remember one time when S was four days old. I had come home from the hospital with strep throat and was not feeling my best. S and I were sleeping in the same bed in order to reduce the number of times I had to get up in order to feed S since I was feeling so poorly. At one point throughout the night and early morning, I opened my eyes and looked down to see this tiny four day old baby with eyes wide open looking up at my eyes and just waiting for me to wake up so they could eat. They didn’t cry and disturb me, they waited with kindness. (I know you may be thinking that newborns don’t have the focused eyesight in order to really be watching me but I disagree. Within minutes of being born, S stopped and looked at the face of each person in the delivery room.)

It reminds me of the article by Sy Montgomery called “Deep Intellect: Inside the Mind of the Octopus” that tells of the relationship Sy made with an octopus at Boston’s New England Aquarium. The octopus, Athena, previously had greeted Sy with firm “handshakes” where Athena would grip Sy’s arms firmly when greeting her. But on one visit Sy had an injured knee and put only one arm out to greet Athena and in turn Athena reached out with only one tentacle and gently held Sy’s arm. This article by Sy Montgomery was expanded and became the book, Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness.

The wonder of consciousness, indeed. It is that deep thing that is brought to the surface when flipping through the pages of old photos of a dear one’s life. It is S with their broad consciousness of the needs of their loved ones. It is deep like the soul of an octopus.

So on the cusp of a major life event for S, with the grand conclusion of one adventure and the setting out on the next, we take a moment to celebrate them, with love and gratitude for our shared lives and shared consciousness.