“It might sound cliché, but I believe in love”, she said. I asked her what kind of love she believed in. Romantic love? Love as a universal principle? The love for a particular activity, object or being?

“I believe in some sort of connection, love as connection. A net between us humans, like the root system of trees. Trees communicate via their root system with each other. Similarly, I picture the connection between us human beings. What would we be without this connection? Would we even be human? It is this connection that makes humans humans.”

"I believe that this is the sense of life”, she continued. "That humans connect with each other. Birth is the first connection, the spark creating connection.

This is the secret of life, the sense of it all.”

She told me about a friend’s experience witnessing the birth of his own child.

It was a home birth, no medication involved. His wife was clasping his hand throughout the whole delivery. He said he could see the whole universe in her eyes. In the moment the child was born, he felt the connection, and he understood life. This was the sense of life, he said, this connection.

She used to paint willow trees. In her pastel and pencil drawings, the willow trees slowly merged into close-ups of human bodies. She frequently took reference photos – one time, of me and another friend. Her smallest is based on this photo. She gave it to me as a birthday present. I added the tendril-root-net represented by a metaphorical red thread that lets us find connection. You can hold it and connect to the smallest itself.