I’ll Remember June

Today, I am June, I think. When I was born and entered the world red-faced and screaming, I was January. As I grew plump and learned to crawl, I became February. Then March. I was a child in March, with happy laughter and cherished dolls and endless singing. And as April came, I was a child still. Older now, taller now—but a child just the same, with colorful braces and clothes that looked like Mommy’s and my very own camera to strap at my side.

Then I was May. A teenager. A whimsical little creature with her head full of unrealistic fancies and her mind on matrimony and her pleasure in writing stories.

And today, I am June. Sometimes I feel as if I haven’t changed at all in these months. As if I were the very same little girl, unaltered by anything, as I was all those years before.

But then I know that isn’t true. For here in June, I am different. Life is different. Change is in the air, it seems—for it is so sunny, so warm, so scented with wildflowers and new grass and opportunity. What is this? This feeling?

Maybe fear because I cannot see what is beyond me. Maybe stillness because I am learning so many things. Or maybe anticipation—dear, beloved anticipation—because the best is yet to come. After all, isn’t June the very promise of summertime?

I don’t know. So much of life doesn’t make sense to me and I’m always asking more questions than the world has answers for. I don’t know what’s ahead. I don’t know if my dreams are what I’ve imagined, or if I’ll do the things I’ve yearned to do, or if my life will fall into all the places I’ve always prayed it would.

I only know I am June. Part little girl, I think, and part woman for the first time in my life. Living quietly, living happily. Some afraid and some anxious. A little like all the other months, yet new and different too, you see.

And no matter what happens in life, I’ll always come back here. To the month where I walked every day in the wildflower fields. Where I packed picnics and waded in the creek. Where I read poem books under quiet shade trees and danced with my little sister and brainstormed novels with my darling mother.

Come July, come August. Come September and October and November.

And when I am December, cold and gray and still, I will lie with the prickling touch of death on my brow. I’ll go back to months before. I’ll remember, I’ll remember.

I’ll remember June.