To the Bright Edge of the World

by Eowyn Ivey

There is a mythical element to our childhood, it seems, that stays with us always. When we are young, we consume the world in great gulps, and it consumes us, and everything is mysterious and alive and fills us with desire and wonder, fear, and guilt. With the passing of the years, however, those memories become distant and malleable, and we shape them into the stories of who we are. We are brave, or we are cowardly. We are loving, or we are cruel.

Father spoke of a light that is older than the stars, a divine light that is fleeting yet always present if only one could recognize it. It pours in and out of the souls of the living and dead, gathers in the quiet places in the forest, and on occasion, might reveal itself in the rarest of true art.

that lovely space between light and wing, air and silence. If only I might create such a photograph.

I will miss you, Evelyn. Let tomorrow be kind to both of us.

You have an eye for the extraordinary, Sophie.

Never are the people here allowed to forget that each of us is alive only by a small thread.