525,600 minutes x 7

One of my favorite people in all the universes—known and yet to be discovered—turned seven today. It feels strange to think I’ve only known him for three years. Perhaps they were light-years or some other measure of time yet to be documented. Perhaps this little guy, who isn’t so little anymore, will be the one to discover it.

Time brought us together. Time, as in the hours of preschool. Time, as in the minutes left of play. Time, in its exactness: the space between now and next and then. Time as the locus of everything—comfort and discomfort, measurable yet boundless. Like empathy. Feeling. Love.

I have a knack for remembering the little things. Mention something in passing, and my mind grabs it like a fly ball, filing it away. It returns to me on sleepless nights (which are most nights), weaving itself into the collage of details that define my understanding of people. I count recollections the way others count stars. Random dates. Names. The way someone moves their body. The rhythm of their life.

This is how I remember one of my favorite people in all the universes, known and yet to be discovered, who turned seven today. On the 364th day of his sixth year (aka yesterday), we sat together on his living room couch, puzzling over Rubik’s algorithms. His fingers twisted the cube as his voice brimmed with excitement, eager to explain a process that completely flew over my head. For two years, we shared school days like this, his shoulder brushing mine, close enough for me to memorize the patterns of his breath. We found a synchronicity in our focus—he, a hive of learning and discovery; me, a teacher, observing and documenting, enthralled by the interplay of his mind and heart.

Two years of school together. One million, fifty-one thousand, two hundred minutes. Sixty-three million, seventy-two thousand seconds. Subtract the spaces between dismissal and arrival, the weekends, the school breaks.

Heartbeats per year = 72 beats/min × 525,600 minutes/year

Heartbeats for two years = Heartbeats per year × 2

75,686,400 heartbeats. For each of us.

I was never a fan of math until I met this child. Many will say that love is incalculable. But to know someone whose heart beats in and for numbers is to understand how the immeasurable can be measured. Because love is the everything that wraps around existence, vast and intangible. It is everything and nothing all at once. It is space. It is time. It is a little boy who isn’t so little anymore. A first grader. No longer my student but forever my teacher.

Happiest of birthdays to the one and only, Glorious NHB. Here’s to the trillions and trillions of heartbeats yet to come. To the galaxies you will discover. To the measurements you will invent. To the people whose lives you will touch.