Fairy Dust

My mom arrived back at the cottage from the store and hastily set down her shopping bags on the table.  She spoke quietly to me: "Jack, come with me.  You have to see this; it's beautiful."  Feeling like a little girl in on a great secret, I followed my mom into the hushed darkness of the night.  

I was reminded of how my mom used to say goodnight to me when I was very young.  She'd tuck me in snugly and in the glow of the nightlight, she'd sprinkle fairy dust over me.  Really she just waved her hands over me and made whooshing sounds, but she let me pick the color of the fairy dust, and I imagined it falling all over me and covering me with sweet dreams.  

Now I was a teenager and my mom's magic had disappeared--or maybe I'd simply stopped believing. But that night she woke that little girl inside of me and I couldn't help feeling like part of a great adventure as we drove down the lake road.  

She stopped the minivan on the old country road across from a field and switched off the lights.  "Uh, this is dangerous," I pointed out, the constant kill-joy.  "Someone will hit us!"

"Shh," she said. "Look over there."  She pointed to the field and I looked.

It was a breathtaking vision of thousands of lights glittering in the still blackness.  Fireflies dancing in the dark, twinkling little stars, sparkling fairies sprinkling their dust and singing a lullaby to the nonbeliever in me.

I believe in the magic of mothers.  Not spell-binding, wand-waving magic, but in their life-giving nature, they carry and pass on a certain kind of light that inspires awe in Beauty, hope in suffering, and love that endures forever.  They make that ultimate sacrifice and lay down their lives for their children--no greater love is there than this.

It will never be enough but it seems that all I can do is say, Thanks, Mom.  You're the reason I started adding sprinkles to my coffee because, as you always say, "Sprinkles make everything better."  I guess it was my way of taking your words and sprinkling them like fairy dust in my life so that I could find beauty in the ordinary and learn how to praise in the storms.  I love you one million Swedish fish.