It's been over eleven years now. It was a wintry afternoon, the snow swirling around the cedar trees outside, forcing little icicles to form at the tips of the deep green foliage clinging to the branches.
My older son, Stephen, was at school, and Reed, my husband, at work. My three little ones were clustered around the kitchen counter, the table top piled high with crayons and markers.
Tom was perfecting a paper airplane, creating his own insignia with stars and stripes, while Sam worked on a self-portrait, his chubby hands drawing first a head, then legs and arms sticking out where the body should have been.
The children mostly concentrated on their work, Tom occasionally tutoring his younger brother on exactly how to make a plane that would fly the entire length of the room.
But Laura, our only daughter, sat quietly, engrossed in her project. Every once in a while she would ask how to spell the name of someone in our family, then painstakingly form the letters one by one.
Next, she would add flowers with small green stems, complete with grass lining the bottom of the page.
She finished off each with a sun in the upper right hand corner, surrounded by an inch or two of blue sky. Holding them at eye level, she let out a long sigh of satisfaction.
"What are you making, Honey?" I asked.
She glanced at her brothers before looking back at me:
"It's a surprise," she said, covering up her work with her hands.
Next, she taped the top two edges of each sheet of paper together trying her best to create a cylinder. When she had finished, she disappeared up the stairs with her treasure.
It wasn't until later that evening that I noticed a "mailbox" taped onto the doors to each of our bedrooms, there was one for Steve. There was one for Tom. She hadn't forgotten Sam or baby Paul.
For the next few weeks, we received mail on a regular basis. There were little notes confessing her love for each of us.
There were short letters full of tiny compliments that only a seven-year-old would notice. I was in charge of retrieving baby Paul's letters, page after page of colored scenes including flowers with happy faces.
"He can't read yet." she whispered, " But he can look at the pictures."
Each time I received one of my little girl's gifts, it brightened my heart.
I was touched at how carefully she observed our moods. When Stephen lost a baseball game, there was a letter telling him she thought he was the best ballplayer in the whole world.
After I had a particularly hard day, there was a message thanking me for my efforts, complete with a smile face tucked near the bottom corner of the page.
This same little girl is grown now, driving off every day to the community college. But some things about her have never changed. One afternoon only a week or so ago, I found a love note next to my bedside.
"Thanks for always being there for me, Mom, " it read, " I'm glad that we're the best of friends."
I couldn't help but remember the precious child whose smile has brought me countless hours of joy throughout the years. There are angels among us. I know, I live with one.