In my chest, I feel an ache so sharp and painful that I have to reach out and steady myself on the shelving as I struggle to suck air into my throbbing lungs.
The last time I saw this jar was when it was full of lightning bugs and sitting on the nightstand. My wife was curled up against me, reciting an old rhyme to our baby. I don’t remember freeing the lightning bugs, although I must’ve. But it had to have been Patricia or Nissa who washed it and stowed it away because I honestly can’t remember putting it there. Or even seeing it for that matter.
Yet here it is.
Finally, I exhale one shaky puff of air and look down to where my baby bounces at my feet. What would bring her here? How could she possibly have known this jar was here?
I wrap my stiff fingers around the cool glass and take it off the shelf. I stare into the empty jar. I see my own face reflected on the shiny surface, but more than that, I see that it’s not empty at all. Among the four slightly rounded walls of this container rests one of my life’s most precious memories. Inside this jar there is love and family and a beautiful legacy that my wife wanted to share with our child. This moment, this moment where my child brought me here, will be added to it, as will all the laughs and squeals and yawns that we put in it from here on.
And it will never be too full. It will never overflow.
And it will never be empty.
My eyes sting as I squat down in front of Grace and hold out the old jar. “Is this what you want?”
Light brown eyes, so like her mother’s, light up, and she reaches for the container. I let her take it from me as I hold her still and steady. As she studies the jar, I drop my forehead onto the side of her head, and I breathe.
More deeply than I have in months, I breathe.
I inhale the soft baby scent of her. It soothes my insides even as I conjure up a crystal-clear image of my beautiful Lena. She’s laughing, holding Grace close to her chest as Patricia and I chase lightning bugs around the backyard to put into this very jar.
I remember it like it was yesterday.
I’ve watched the video of it so many times. I know every word, every step, every expression by heart.
I grab Grace, securing the jar with one of my much bigger hands, and carry her from the pantry. I waste no time in heading for the patio. Although I haven’t seen a single firefly yet this year, something in my gut tells me what I’ll find.
I yank back the curtain, fling open the door, and there, filling my backyard with their cheerfully winking bellies, is a sea of lightning bugs.
Grace squeals a shrill, happy delightful sound, and I stop. Stop right in my tracks and just stare out at the display.
There are hundreds of them. Maybe thousands. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many in one place. But they’re here, in my backyard, on an early spring night, and I know it’s no coincidence.
As I stand taking it all in, a single luminescent insect floats gracefully onto the patio. Instantly, it catches my eye. I watch as it, almost purposefully, drifts in a lazy pattern that leads it directly to me, and then lights on the back of my hand.
Tears pool in my eyes as I watch the soft flash of the bug’s underbelly. It sits perfectly still, as do I, as though something as mysterious as the night is passing between us.
And it is.
It’s mysterious and healing and awe-inspiring.
In a strangled voice, backed only by the sound of my daughter’s gleeful squeak, I whisper to the little bug, “Hi, baby. I’ve missed you so much.”
Twenty-eight
Pictures of You
Nate
Twenty-three years later
I pat the last piece of tape across the twelfth box and set it aside. It still makes me feel a little tight in the chest to think of my baby girl moving out, getting married.
Growing up.
I realize this is something I’ve dreaded for a long time now.
It’s time to let her go.
Since my beautiful Lena died, Grace has been the center of my universe. Over the past twenty-three years, every star in the vast sky of my life is a moment, an event, a milestone involving Grace.
Crawling, walking, reading, writing. Her first words, her first tooth, her first day of school. Her first slumber party, her first boyfriend, her first broken heart—there are literally thousands of bright spots in my existence since Lena died and at the nucleus of every single one is Grace.
Her life, her love, her laughter, keeping her safe and helping her find her way were the only objectives in my life. Everything else came in at a very distant second. Or maybe even third.
In the beginning, I didn’t think I would ever be able to recover from losing my wife. It was touch and go for a while, but the night of the lightning bugs…well, that seemed to start me on the right path. Just like I’m sure Lena knew it would.