"You probably already have lots, but I wanted to give you something."

Inside was a crystal. It sparkled. We hugged. 

Because I spend a lot of time in my sewing room I suspended it above my machine on a slender thread. It reminds me of her. If I add up how much time she and I are in the same place, it is only a few minutes a year. But we share an anchoring trust in God and a sisterhood in the Mothers of Special Needs Children Club. Those two themes are with us every moment of every day from now into tomorrow's tomorrow. That makes me feel closer to her than a neighbor I pass every morning with whom I only share a street. 

Crystals are capable of redirecting the light. I don't precisely understand it but the colors are already around us. It's just that we cannot always find them. The crystal is cut, probably with a very sharp instrument, at different angles. Then when the sun's rays dance through her translucent walls she sends them zooming off in all directions, with hues that don't even pause to brighten the crystal herself. She's too magnanimous for that. Crystals are more interested in giving color away. 

My friend was right in her guess that I already own a crystal. But silly me, I hung it in the twins' room, which they only inhabit when the scant light is from a hundred watt bulb or their eyes are shut. And I hardly spend time there at all. So the beauty shimmers unloved. 

Today is overcast, and the crystal keeps her super power a secret. But as I sit with fabric in my lap, she and I know that color is coming.