Reflections | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: Reflections | Previous Challenge Entry
By Laurie Bahlke
08/03/22
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We are looking at the evening stars. She is six and I am showing her how to use a telescope. She is beautiful, a child who holds much love in her heart and has a great curiosity about the world around her. She is in her pink nightgown and her blonde hair falls loosely upon her shoulders, free from the hair bands that have kept it neatly secured and up in a ponytail. She closes both olive-colored eyes, keeping one closed tightly as she opens the other, pressing into the viewing lens. She wonders why the stars look more like circles instead of the stars she is used to seeing in her story books or like the ones she draws with five points. I tell her I think it's because of how our eye perceives the light from the night sky and because we can't see stars up close. I tell her that stars are made up of gases that burn. I tell her that it is too difficult to draw something so unique and so we, people, sum it up to five points. I tell her the truth I know. I will google it later.

She spies a moving light and is excited to tell me. We discover it is a plane far off in the distance. Ann moves away from the telescope to look with the naked eye up towards the night sky and then to the grassy lawn below the deck and to the trees that border our yard. She giggles to see fireflies dancing, moving, landing, and resting. She looks again up towards the sky, and I trace out the Big Dipper with my finger as she follows along. She laughs when she can see the "scooper", as the dots of light come together to create the whole. I marvel at her and I cannot express the gratitude I have in my heart for such a gift. The light in her eyes reflects what it is to be innocent, to be amazed and delighted by the quiet gifts in nature, to love what is present and undisturbed, and to be inquisitive in the journey and in learning. My thoughts are disturbed by Mae's hands tugging on mine. “I want to see too grandma." She tugs on the telescope, and everything is suddenly out of view. I laugh and scoop her up, “Hey little one, be patient so grandma can find you a star." Ann chimes in, “I can do it, grandma” and she patiently, lovingly directs Mae to wait. "Look, right there Mae. Do you see it?" "Oh yep," says Mae as she dances away just as quickly as she had waltzed in. She is three and favors enjoying a popsicle and freedom runs after fireflies more than learning how to use a telescope.

Later, her hazel eyes flutter as sleep beckons to her. She gazes up at the lights decorating our living room tent. “Look grandma, the stars are in here." I can see the joy and imagination that sparkles in her eyes. She rolls towards me and says, "I love you, grandma." and she drifts off, her twinkling eyes now blanketed by her lids.

They are both asleep, out like little love lights and I can hear their slow, even breathing that seems to cycle with the evening sounds of crickets, frogs, and the soft rustle of the wind through the trees. Late in the evening, I kiss each of them on the forehead and then head to the bathroom for a late-night bath complete with Epsom salts for aching hips and back pain, both born into being by 11,000 steps of running, jumping, skipping, walking, dancing, and twirling. As the bath water runs, I look into the mirror. They share my eye color, and this makes me smile.

I wonder what my eyes reflect to them. Do they know that I don’t see only a few points of light in them, but that as each year unfolds, I see the totality of who they are and yes, even who they will be in the future? Do they know that I wish upon every star for their happiness and safety as they journey through life? I hope my eyes reflect how often I pray for them, the world in which they live, and that their love for the Lord burns brightly. I pray they can always see the love I have for them, reflected in my eyes.

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