My current unit with my sixth graders is “Everything on earth is interconnected.” We read about food chains and the delicate balance predicated upon biodiversity. It’s the most science I’ve taught in English class before, a unit I was voluntold to teach, but ironically had difficulty connecting with.

It seems I was reading in isolation until I met my sunrise companion. Sure, I’ve made lots of friends at the pier, but this one is different. He’s just like me, and he reminds me everything on earth is interconnected, including the two of us.

Wednesday morning was uncharacteristically warm enough for me to set up my beach chair and feel the sand in my toes in January. I showed up early for the ethereal predawn luminescence, but I wasn’t the first one there.

He was there, wading in the shallows, standing perfectly still, a shaggy-plumed silhouette by the jetties right in front of my winter patch of sand. I approached the shore and settled into my chair as silently as possible so as not to disturb the Great Blue Heron that’s become my sunrise companion.

For weeks now, I’ve seen him at the pier nearly every morning. He arrives before dawn like I do, and he’s territorial like I am. He’s claimed the same spot to fish for food to feed his body that I chose to fish for food to feed my soul. We both understand patience and stillness; while I journal, he stands motionless before me. We’re both alone by choice, understanding some work requires solitude. We both show up regardless of weather.  Unlike human visitors, the heron never talks, needs nothing from me, simply shares a parallel presence.

I’d missed his strong, still presence when I was in the hospital with Tony, though I’m guessing he stuck to his morning routine. Did he notice the absence of my camera waiting for first light?  Sometimes, he’s perched on the rocks. Sometimes on the rails of the pier. Sometimes in flight, hugging the water, his six-foot wingspan reflected in the river. I imagine he question whether he’s making the most of the sunrise—he just shows up, does what he was created to, and trusts that the fish will come.

There’s no need for words. We acknowledge each other’s presence and share the stillness.

Thursday morning was cold and windy, but we showed up anyway. I was enjoying my morning serenity when Kevin parked beside my car. I’d talked to Tony about this recently, expressing how some mornings I don’t want to talk to anyone, that I’m going to the sunrise to commune with God.

“I think God sends you what you need at the sunrise, not what you want.  Some mornings, it’s about what you can give, not what you take,” Tony advised.

That morning, Kevin needed counsel more than I needed quiet. We chatted about twenty minutes, then just before the sun crested, he said, “I’ll leave you to your journal,” and got back in his car to depart. Healthily layered up, I brought my journal out to watch the sunrise with my favorite companion. The Great Blue Heron was waiting for me on the jetties. We watched the sun rise together, and I was grateful for my two friends that morning.

Tony was right, of course. God does send me what I need at sunrise. Some mornings it’s Kevin needing counsel, Billy sharing his Santa stories, or Kenny discussing the weather. But most mornings? Most mornings, God sends me the heron.

Not to talk. Not to need. Just to be.

Maybe God knew that after years of teaching, mothering, caregiving—after all the words I pour out daily—my soul needed a companion who speaks in stillness. Someone who could teach me about presence without preaching, about faithfulness without fanfare. The heron doesn’t know it’s ministering to me, doesn’t know it’s teaching me about the very interconnectedness I’m supposed to be teaching my students. It just shows up, does what it was created to do, and somehow that’s exactly what I need.

On Friday, however, I was waiting for the heron, wondering where he was. I was walking the beach taking photographs when he glided by gracefully and landed nearby on the pier. Three mornings, three different sunrises, but that same feeling of solidarity, interconnected to the world through this magnificent creature who understands the deepest fellowship requires no words at all. 

During Tony’s medical crisis at New Year’s, I stole a few minutes at the water’s edge at dawn when I could and missed the sunrise entirely one day. I meditated on the painted sunrises on the emergency room floor, but there were no birds beyond seagulls, none like at my pier. 

Of course, he was waiting for me when I returned from the hospital, and I realized it wasn’t just that I was missing my sunrise… I’d been absent from an ecosystem we shared.

The truth is, I hadn’t even known it was the same bird until those hospital days. Missing “the birds” at sunrise, I’d Googled Great Blue Herons from Tony’s bedside and discovered they’re incredibly territorial, returning to the same fishing spots day after day. The revelation stunned me—all those weeks, maybe months, I thought I’d been seeing different herons. But no. It had been him. The same one. My faithful friend I hadn’t even recognized as singular until I lost him.

Perhaps the heron had noticed after all.

Hundreds of morning moments strung together, and I thought I was observing nature. In reality, I’ve been woven into it.  The heron expects me now, as I expect it. On Saturday morning when Tony and I arrived at the pier, the fog was too thick to see my plumed friend, but I could still picture him wading in the shallows, standing on the rocks, perched on the pier, and flying across golden water. He’s etched into my memory. 

Everything on earth is interconnected is what I’m teaching my sixth graders in English class.  But in that liminal space between night and day? The heron teaches me that I must be still enough, consistent enough, present enough to become interconnected.

That patient, statue-like stance and the S-curve of his long neck. That dagger-like bill and those massive wings. There’s something almost meditative about the heron: it embodies the “be still and know” quality I prize so greatly.  We show up faithfully every morning before the crowds, silent witnesses to the sunrise.

Just this weekend, a Christmas gift from my little brother’s family finally arrived—a laminated field guide to Virginia Birds. I flipped through it eagerly, and there he was: my Great Blue Heron. Page after page of birds I might see at the pier, but I only needed one. The guide confirmed what Google had taught me from a hospital room, what absence had revealed, what presence now proves daily: Great Blue Herons are faithful to their spots, territorial about their fishing grounds. This one has chosen the Yorktown Fishing Pier.

And me? I’ve chosen him right back.

Tomorrow morning, we’ll both be there again—two fishers at dawn, faithful to our spot, faithful to each other, living proof that everything on earth is interconnected.