I picked my little angel on Earth up from daycare this afternoon and asked him if he wanted to go to the store with me. I had several errands to run as we are having a little belated birthday celebration for him tomorrow.

He happily said yes and we drove to the local supermarket. As we walked in, he insisted on a ‘race car’ cart, which I saw nowhere. I asked him to look at the row of carts and tell me if he saw any that looked like race cars. He replied no, and I explained that I thought those carts were only at the other grocery store.

As I loaded him into a plain old metal shopping cart, he pointed out the automatic sliding doors to a dad unloading his little girl from a red race car cart. “A race car, Mommy!”

I helped him out of our boring cart and we walked outside to grab the cool cart that was conveniently left on the sidewalk outside.

As he climbed in, he promptly scooted to one side, buckled the seatbelt and said, “This seat is for Jonathan!”

I thought it interesting since he has no friends I’m aware of named Jonathan, and no classmates with that name.

I immediately texted my aunt, whose son – a precious angel my son never knew – was lost two years ago.

I explained in a text what he said and envisioned dear Jonathan sitting next to him in their race car cart.

She texted back, “Tomorrow is his birthday.”

I hadn’t even realized it when I sent her the message.