One night, they silently gathered under the streetlamp as I lay curled snugly in bed, a mere 100 yards away. We were jolted out of our sleep by our wonderfully harmonic whining dogs who were more ready to hop out the door than we were. Too late to walk, I made a small pot of espresso for my spouse and me and groggily walked with him out the door to say goodbye, fresh cup of aromatic coffee in hand. As I walked into the road and waved him up and over the hill, my eyes came to rest on the ground, where a perfect set of luna wings lay. In the quiet, I let out an audible sigh… as the sight of wings left from the night’s bat activity always brings me to my knees. Bending down to place my coffee mug in the grass, I kneeled in front of the wings and gently picked them up, holding them and seeing the soft white filaments lining their edges alight with the sun’s rays.

As my breath slowed I looked around on the ground where my eyes saw yet another pair and brought them into the growing nest of wings. Searching the grass that surrounds the mailbox that is directly below the lamplight, I was surprised to find a brown wing and then its mate and then a wing I have not seen on our land, with hues of orange and pink that reflected the morning sky slowly coloring the hills. My heart was both amazed to hold these beauties in my hand, and heavy, knowing that gathering beneath the light that beckoned did not end with them flying back from whence they came. Instead, their wings were left in stillness and discovered by me, sheltered in my hands and honored for the sacred remains they were.Although the myriad of wings are paused in time in the hardened layers of sculpted wax, they embody an energy of dynamic motion as they hold each other up and bring one another closer to the light and to the sky. I believe this is our job in this lifetime— supporting one another to the best of our abilities as we face the unknown and work for healing with what we do know.