In the quiet places of the world, where the wind moves through the trees and time slows to a hush, love takes on many forms. Sometimes, it is the presence of a small spruce tree, its branches reaching upward, unaware of the weight of meaning it carries. Other times, love is a frail cat, pressing into a gentle hand, asking for nothing more than the simple reassurance of touch.
Jasmine was never the strongest. When I first brought her home from the SPCA, she was already a survivor, though just barely. She had almost died during her spaying surgery, and even after recovery, life remained fragile. My other cats—more confident, more assured in their place—saw her as something to be pushed aside. She moved carefully, never wanting to draw attention, never expecting more than the smallest kindness. And so, I gave her those kindnesses in secret. I would pet her only when the others weren’t looking, knowing that if they saw, their jealousy would turn to cruelty. In those stolen moments, she would close her eyes and lean into my touch, as if, for just a moment, she was safe.
She lived over a decade this way—quiet, watchful, but deeply present. And perhaps because she had once been so close to the edge of existence, she understood something that the rest of us forget: life is not in the grand moments, but in the small ones. In the warmth of the sun on a winter morning. In the gentle weight of a hand resting on fur. In the stillness.
Near the place where Jasmine once walked, Pearce grows. A young spruce, its needles still soft, its roots taking hold in the quiet earth. It was planted in honor of my nephew, who never took his first breath, yet lingers in the spaces between memory and being. Pearce will never know the world in the way we do, but in another way, he knows it better. He does not grieve the past or fear the future. He simply stands, growing toward the sky, reminding us that love is not bound to form.
This photograph captures something of that truth. The sky is overcast, the earth scattered with fallen leaves, but in the center, Pearce stands illuminated, his green needles catching the light. And to the side, Jasmine walks toward me, her small body low to the earth, always cautious, always aware. They never knew each other, not in the way we think of knowing. And yet, here they are, bound by the invisible thread of love that never unravels.
Jasmine is gone now, but only in the way that all things eventually change. I still feel her in the hush of a quiet morning, in the way light filters through the trees, in the spaces where presence lingers long after form has faded. And Pearce, still growing, reminds me that nothing is ever truly lost.
Some things remain.
Not in the way they once were, but in the way they were always meant to be.