This photo was taken by my sweet friend @thegemmers . It wasn't planned. Our kids decided to fill the fort with their little bodies, three of my kids, two of hers. But nothing in this friendship has ever been planned. It has always just happened. I met her when I was pregnant with Ophelia and just learned about losing Ophelia's twin Luca. We were standing in line for seats at a pizza place, she was getting hers to go. She commented on my sweater, we talked about being from the Midwest. She was from Indiana. Me, I'm a Michigan girl. She visited my hometown in the summers, her aunt, it turned out, had been my music teacher in elementary school. I opened up about our loss. She shared her concerns about becoming pregnant. Before she left, we exchanged cards. I was a wedding planner, she was a wedding photographer. In between then and now, we have communicated here and there but not very often. Never out of lack of want but rather life and its spectrum of distractions. We have celebrated new lives at similar times and grieved just the same. I have thought of her and then received an email. When their bid was accepted on a house, it was only blocks away from our own. And even before they moved in, I had hoped to run into them only to return from the park and see them walking ahead of me. So, yes, none of it was ever planned but all of it has been magical.