Fireflies

It's amazing how small miracles can happen in life when you least expect them to. Sometimes those miracles take place and go unnoticed or unappreciated while others touch your heart and create a moment in time, like a bookmark, that you'll never forget. I had one of those moments just the other day. For as long as I can remember I have always wanted to see fireflies. It might sound silly to some but I lived in Utah most my life where the dry desert air kept anything like that away. As a kid I would read my father's books. He always had national geographic books or books that always peaked my curiosity or filled me with awe at what I read. One book was about natures most amazing things. It had big pages with beautiful pictures and I was always drawn to the page about fireflies. It was at that time I knew I wanted to see these little creatures in real life. I sat with my husband a couple months ago on the couch one night, and mentioned to him how that was on my bucket list. Of course he picked up his phone right away and started googling location of fireflies. Nothing came up for Northern New York so obviously I was a little let down. He did say though, that they were in Chicago where his grandparents live so I thought maybe I would be able to see them someday. A few weeks later we were at a friends house who live way beyond city limits. It had rained a few days earlier and was going to rain later that night so the air was muggy and stale. We were all sitting outside and someone mentioned something about the lightening bugs. My husband called to me and I looked around the corner of their house to see a few little flashes of light here and there. I was ecstatic and couldn't contain my excitement! Unfortunately there weren't many of them and we ended up going inside because of the rain and the fact that we were being eaten by mosquito's. I went home that night thinking that's the last time I will see them because I hadn't seen them last summer when we lived here and I had never seen them by our house. A little disappointed, but still very much excited I was able to see a few from a distance, I carried on like normal throughout the next few weeks and didn't think anything of it. A few nights ago, after a long day of rain, Zach walked outside to get the mail. A few minutes later he ran inside and started screaming "baby come outside!" I sprang up from the couch in confusion and he said "There are fireflies everywhere!". I grabbed my phone and my camera and I walked outside. What I saw was amazing. Flashes of light EVERYWHERE all over the yard in the neighbors yard across the street, wherever I looked there were fireflies. A few minutes later I walked back inside but couldn't shake the feeling that I needed more time so I shut off the front porch light and went outside alone. I knelt down and watched with wide eyes as the flashes continued. They lit up the night sky like Christmas lights as the crickets played their familiar tunes in the background. Tears rushed to my eyes as I sat there and watched. As the twinkling continued I suddenly felt my baby girl with me. In an instant I felt this rush of emotion. Like she was sending me a message. A message of hope. Hope that everything will get better, that this emptiness inside of me will not go away but will get easier to deal with. Hope that my husband and I could go on and that everything would be ok. Some would look at those fireflies with no regard, that they had no meaning. But they had meaning to me. I got up after wiping my tears from my eyes and walked back inside with a not only a new outlook on life but something I had wished to feel for awhile. For the first time in a long time I had felt hope. I will still have hard days, but a little light inside of me has been lit. It might be dim at times and others times extremely bright but this light is my hope and as long as it's there burning then everything will be ok. We will be ok.