Yesterday I read about and visited a new park in Greenbrae called “Alex’s Playground and Discovery Gardens”.  Alex was 7 when nearly five years ago, he died in a horrific and tragic accident at his school. 

Several months before he died, he told his mother if anything ever happened to him, he would be a baby hummingbird so that he could be with her.

The day after he died, his mother saw a small hummingbird in their garden who was there for a brief moment and then flew off with a friend.  

Recently his mother was attending a show by the Lego sculptor Sean Kenney when she saw a giant hummingbird built with 31,565 Lego bricks, its bill in an equally large Lego flower.

She was able to buy it and now today it sits in a new playground that the family is donating in memory of Alex.

I think of the gazebo in Blackie’s Pasture in Tiburon and the playground in Boyle Park in Mill Valley, both honoring the loss of a child.   What a beautiful way to honor the loss, to create a place where children gather, laugh, and play.

The sculpture also is a reminder of the Hummingbird Alliance, a nonprofit the family formed after Alex’s death to push for stronger gate safety rules.