A Christmas party. There was a piano in the lobby. I was playing carols while people ate cookies and tossed back drinks. People wore reindeer hats and festive wear. There was a lady in a Grinch mask.

Tonight, sitting beside me on the piano bench was an 11-year-old music critic named Becca.

She was dressed in her nicest Christmas clothes. Red satin pants. Puffy black blouse. Ribbon in her hair. She was squeezed as close to me as she could get. Becca is blind.

“I wish I knew what you looked like,” she said, while I played “Winter Wonderland.” I was playing the part about naming the snowman Parson Brown.

“You aren’t missing much,” I said. “I’m not much to look at.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously. I’m redheaded. I’m gangly. I have a big nose.”

“And you smell like dogs.”

“So they say.”

Becca and I are close friends. I met her a little over a year ago. I cannot explain how we became so close. Or why. But there you are.

I do not have any other 11-year-old friends. And I can honestly say, I did not expect to have an 11-year-old pal. But sometimes these things just happen.

Becca started spending weekends at our house. She began going on the road with me, sometimes performing with me at shows. Then we became her legal godparents. It all happened so fast. And now I can’t remember what my life was like before her.

I played “Let it Snow.”

“You’re my best friend,” she said, mid-song.

“You’re mine, too.”

“Seriously?” she said.

“Seriously.”

She leaned into me. “Seriously-seriously?”

Yes. In fact, I wish I could tell this girl how much she means to me. I wish I could tell her that this year, before my wife and I left the country, we had a will drawn up—just in case the Delta airline pilots had a crappy day. We have no heirs, and even fewer assets. But everything we have goes to Becca.

She’ll never know this, of course. She doesn’t need to. But in case that day ever comes, I left her a note. I plan on having it typed up in braille someday.

“Dear Becca,” it begins, “if you’re reading this, I am no longer here. The worst part about my death is that I wish I could see you grow up. But you can rest assured that wherever I am, I can see you as you read this. Go ahead and wave at me right now.

“Yep. I saw that.

“Right now, I am leaning over the banister of Heaven, watching you, and cheering for you. Your life is going to be amazing, whether I am in it or not.

“And no matter what kind of pains you go through, no matter what kinds of trials you face, you’re not going through them alone. Because I’m here with you. You can’t see me. But sometimes, when you’re lonely, you’ll sense that I’m there. And whenever you cry, that warm feeling is me hugging you.

“Because we aren’t two people. Not really. Whenever two people love each other, whenever two friends find each other, on some level, that means they’re really just one person.

“They’ve always been one person since the beginning of time. God split them up at the beginning of Creation, then put them at different parts of the world and said, ‘Okay, now you two find each other.’

“And when they DO find each other, everything just makes sense. And they just know. They know that nothing, not even the powers of death, nor the breadth of time itself could ever come between them.”

But I could never say this to an 11-year-old.

So I just hug her and say, “Seriously, Becca.”

For the record, I do not smell like dogs.