APRIL 20, 2026 – One of the countless wonders of life on earth is that each human being is its own universe. Since the species first appeared, roughly 200,000 years ago—give or take a few millennia—an estimated 117 billion of us have roamed the earth in one state of confusion or another. (According to the simple math, 7% of all people who’ve ever lived are alive today.) A sub-wonder of this every-person-a-universe marvel is that within each of us who’s attained an age of a few decades reside vast groups of interactive experiential galaxies. E pluribus unum applies as much to one of us as to the whole lot of us.
This afternoon I was reminded of these personal inner galaxies. The occasion was a small luncheon party in celebration of my middle sister’s 75th birthday, or as our oldest sister insists on calling such affairs, “the 75th anniversary of her birth,” a phrase she borrows from the litany of intercessions contained in the Episcopal Common Book of Prayer. Our oldest sister, who lives six states away, wasn’t present for the party, but her “birthday anniversary” gift of orchids the size of California redwoods arrived in the middle of our Thai takeout meal. Our youngest sister, however, in town for her Minnesota Opera gig and a house guest of the birthday girl and her husband, was very much present for the celebration.
For a good couple of hours, we (including my spouse and me to round out the total guest list of three) put all our woes and worries—public and private—aside and basked in the exchange of pleasantries and humorous reminiscences.
My favorites featured us young kids down at the beach along the Mississippi River at the end of our street just a few hundred feet from our house. The Rice Street beach was a popular spot on hot summer days, when the moms would park themselves on folding chairs in the shade at the top of the sandy slope that pitched us neighborhood kids into the warm muddy waters flowing lazily past our town. “Mom! Mom! Mom!” I’d shout. “Watch me! Mo-o-m! W-a-a-atch!” I’d jump up and down until I saw her sunhat turn toward me, and then I’d “go under” and do a somersault, which, of course she couldn’t see. When I broke through the surface and looked her way, I could see her raised hand give limp acknowledgment of my underwater feat as the sunhat turned again toward the moms seated to one side or the other for a resumption of conversation.
Once the stage was set; once our memories were back in the early 1960s at Rice Street beach, Jenny told how Elsa, six years her senior, was Jenny’s practical guardian. If Mother sometimes forgot that Jenny (along with me) had been dropped off with one elderly babysitter or another, whenever Elsa was placed in charge of Jenny—either intentionally or by default—Elsa always discharged faithfully her responsibilities. We have home silent movies, in fact, documenting Elsa in action—herding a crowd of kids attending Jenny’s fifth birthday party in our dining room. While Mother played a secondary role, placing the cake on the table, it was 11-year-old Elsa who cracked the whip and kept everyone in line. There was no need for sound; Elsa’s authoritative gestures and the compliance they secured told the whole story.
Today Jenny recounted the time when Elsa provided transportation services for Jenny—with the method of conveyance being Elsa’s new bright blue Schwinn with a standard (of the day) wire basket attached to the handlebars. Jenny was probably no older than three, since she fit in the basket. Yet the critical part of the story was not that Elsa had transported Jenny in this fashion but that to ensure Jenny’s comfort, Elsa had used a pillow from the living room as a cushion for the basket. As Jenny described the event, she noted how impressed she was—then and now, in recalling the memory—that Elsa would demonstrate such concern for Jenny’s well-being . . . aside from safety considerations, of course.
I realized how their relationship as young kids had shaped their interactions throughout life—Elsa’s continued concern for Jenny’s comfort and well-being; Jenny’s deep appreciation for Elsa’s unfailing attention to detail on behalf of others.
I was then to receive a dose of that attention myself. As the party was breaking up, Elsa showed me into what used to be her practice room but is now a kind of “organizational staging area.” There she pulled out a banker’s box with my name neatly printed on several sides.
“In downsizing our storage unit,” she said, “I consolidated a few things, including framed photos and other stuff that you’d given Mother and Dad. [Items that had been removed from their house after Dad’s death 16 years ago and Mother’s move to assisted living.] I didn’t want to be the person throwing any of it away, so it’s for you to decide whether you want to save any of it or toss it.”
My initial inclination was to junk the contents sight unseen, but perhaps save the box, until I quickly realized that only the ex-hoarder in me would save the box. On the other hand, in her usual fashion, Elsa had taken the time and effort to lay aside the contents in case I might be interested in them. At the very least I owed her the courtesy of taking inventory of the contents before hurling them into our alley-side waste bin.
Having settled on the more considerate course of action, I hoped to spirit the box out of the house and into our car without Beth noticing. “What?” I imagined her saying. “We’re already drowning in stuff that should be thrown out or given away and you’re hauling more stuff in?” And she would be entirely within her rights and reason. In the event, however, she noticed the box but graciously withheld comment.
An hour later after I’d picked up Illiana from school and brought her to our house, Jenny appeared—to visit with her grand-niece and continue her visit with Beth and me before she returns home to Gotham. After picking up treat drinks at the nearby Tii Cup, the four of us repaired to our back porch, where I scoured the banker’s box and spread its contents onto the table. What ensued inside my inner universe was an inner-galactic voyage, numerous highlights of which were shared with the other people present—Jenny, Beth, Illiana, and later Cory, when he arrived to pick up Illiana. After careful review, nothing got tossed. In those moments of review, anyway, everything held too much meaning—as much meaning as one’s life itself, especially as it intersects with the lives of other “universes.” (Cont.)
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© 2026 by Eric Nilsson
