My nephew is 5, and we’re wedged in the back of my parents’ SUV with the whole fam as it inches forward slowly, everyone’s eyes riveted to the zoo’s holiday light shows. A polar bear, a coiled snake, a leaping dolphin and (his favorite) a trundling aardvark, all giant and lit up, blazing. His joy is palpable, more dazzling than the spectacle before us.

Swept up in the magic, he suddenly seizes my face in his small, sweet hands and kisses my cheek.

And in that moment, every single light from every single display combined from across the entire zoo would still be but dim flicker next to the supernova that is my heart.

Love,
February