Shoveling Down the Greens

I can't see me lovin’ nobody but you for all my life. When you’re with me baby the skies ’ ll be blue for all my life. -- Sammy came into my life as a tiny, timid thing, in a blue, reusable shopping bag. It was a summer Tuesday at Tufts. I had just come home from a sunburnt Memorial Weekend in Nantucket, my legs still stinging from biking around the bogs. My colleague Mari Anne came through the side door next to my desk and whispered, “Kristin, come here.” I walked around the cubicle wall, peeked into the open bag, and there was the face that launched a thousand ships. Round moon eyes that would reflect her glow in the darkness, that would look up at me in hunger, curiosity, impatience, that would dare me to come closer from behind the safety of a hot pink feather toy or doorframe, that would eventually never close, even after her heart had stopped beating. Our baby girl was most likely born in a Somerville bush or backyard in mid-April of 2011. Mari Anne said her neighbor ha