She was born as music–a single, mellow note suspended in the air. Suspended as if strung from nothing, held into possibilities of sound. Her clear note hung a lone, sweet tone in the midst of us all; as silence captured its ache and tenderly, reluctantly released it, dipped it lower into a breath of melancholy only to lift again to its earlier height both rich and real and complete–one solitary note swaying into the early dawn.
Emily arrived in the cold, grey hours of the newborn year, between the breathing dark and the pearl, winter light. A child of the dawn, before dawn broke.