The Gift of Light

My daughter’s high-pitched voice is typical for someone her age: it drips like honey so damn sweet, some days I could eat her words. But when she recently said, “I want to make a gift for Grandma and Papaw,” it was the resolve in her voice—a drive well beyond her years—that really caught my attention. “I want to make something they can see from heaven,” she said.

The words hit like a gut punch that re-filled my body with the same sadness I’ve been pushing down for what feels like eons. Think of a video game character low on life force receiving a sudden surge of energy; now, imagine that energy is fueled entirely by grief that never truly diminishes.

And no: this sadness isn’t rooted in my mother’s recent passing, nor my father’s passing just a few months prior. Rather: if really pressed to trace its origins, I’d say this melancholy Big Bang sparked when my father first started losing his balance and dexterity, and then multiplied exponentially with every new symptom, every fruitless medical exam, every horrifying prognosis (and so on). These things pulled me toward the event horizon, and their deaths pushed me the rest of the way in.

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There is no turning back, and most days I feel like I’m floating weightless in space, witnessing life at a distance and just waiting for cosmic forces to do what they will. But occasionally my daughter pulls me back down and wakes me up, a 33-pound anchor with just enough force to tether me momentarily to this planet.

“OK,” I said, looking down as she strained her neck to make eye contact. “What would you like to make for them?”

I expected a lot of hemming and hawing, but her quick reply indicated she’d been giving this a lot of thought long before she vocalized her request.

“A rainbow for Grandma and a sun-catcher for Papaw,” she said without missing a beat.

I told her we would make both, or we could possibly even make a rainbow sun-catcher—a single gift they could share—but it would be a few days, because we needed to think about the best way to approach the project(s). So we studied rainbows and light, and I explained how, in a way, a rainbow is a sun-catcher: that it is a refraction and dispersion of light cast by the sun. 

And so one day while watering the flowers at my mother’s house, with the sun beating down from over our shoulders, she hatched an idea: “We can make a rainbow for Grandma to see right now! You make the rainbow, and I will catch it for Papaw!”

And so I did. And she did. And I thought our project was complete.

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“No, no, no,” she said when I intimated as much later that day. “I still want to make a rainbow for Grandma and a sun-catcher for Papaw. Something they can see forever. I want to draw the rainbow, but I don’t know how to make a sun-catcher.”

I told her I would research ideas. A few more days passed, and she grew increasingly insistent.

“Mom, I really need to make those gifts for Grandma and Papaw,” she said. “How else will they know I love and miss them?”

There was no denying the urgency in her voice. I gathered the necessary supplies and we got to work, the only real hiccup being the lack of proper “indigo” and “violet” markers (she was insistent we make the rainbow exactly according to prism specifications). But we improvised with what we had, and she beamed with pride upon the completion of each project.

And then even more so a couple days later when we turned her drawing into a t-shirt she can wear whenever she wants to send a message to her grandmother. And I suppose she’ll beam again when we frame the original, but that is a project for another day.


Somewhere in-between the first arch of the rainbow and the finished shirt it hit me: we were completing these gifts on the eve on my parents’ wedding anniversary. Their first one since my father passed away. Their first one since my mother passed away. Their first once since my jaw became inexorably clenched in its current position.  

I gaze at the sun-catcher, now irreverently taped to our window, and notice a puff of air eke out of my lungs. It travels up through my trachea and escapes from behind my teeth. A sigh.

I try to focus on the light but find myself succumbing to the push and pull of gravity and inertia—of nothingness and everything—all at once.

My feet rise from the Earth and then come down again, every hushed step and terrible stomp a battle between unseen forces. 

I go where they take me.

 

 

The Pandemic (From the Perspective of a Three Year Old)

My daughter’s favorite stuffy has been bedridden with a terrible cold for two days now. She’s also started writing/singing songs about needing to stay home to stay well.

We’ve had to walk a fine line between being open and honest with her — and keeping her at peace. But invariably every time we have to explain something new (why play dates are cancelled... why we aren’t going to preschool... why we can’t go to the playground... why we can’t go to restaurants... why we can’t go visit grandma...), the stress digs in a little deeper, no matter how delicately we deliver the words.

Just a reminder that even the littlest humans are indeed still human, and this is a tough time for them, too.

So be patient. Walk away if you get angry, and give them a hug even when their sadness defies all reason. Do whatever you can to make the most of this time together, and when all else fails, remember to give yourself a break, too.

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Crayola Unveils NEW Partially Peeled, Pre-Broken Crayons for Preschoolers

Every pack of Crayola L’il Nubz™ comes with a mixture of round and triangular crayons (because we all know they’re going to get mixed together anyway).

Every pack of Crayola L’il Nubz™ comes with a mixture of round and triangular crayons (because we all know they’re going to get mixed together anyway).

The newest product from Crayola has preschool moms and dads rethinking their back-to-school shopping. Called L’il Nubz™, these partially peeled, pre-broken crayons are being lauded as a game changer by parents and teachers alike.

“My 3-year-old used to spend HOURS peeling her crayons whenever we’d sit down to color,” noted mommy blogger Dakota McKenzie. “By the time she was done peeling the paper to her exact specifications, it was time to put the coloring book away. Now that I think of it, she was hardly coloring at all.”

McKenzie had been granted a sneak peek of this timesaving invention, thanks in large part to the success of her blog, “Mommy & MEgan.” Although she was skeptical when she first received a box of L’il Nubz™,  she changed her tune soon after handing the box over to her daughter.

Using an old school box of crayons, McKenzie’s daughter spent 14 hours, over the course of five days, on this page in her coloring book. Most of that time was spent peeling and breaking existing crayons.

Using an old school box of crayons, McKenzie’s daughter spent 14 hours, over the course of five days, on this page in her coloring book. Most of that time was spent peeling and breaking existing crayons.

“She went from no-casso to Picasso the moment that box hit her hands. Sure, she was a little confused when she first dumped them out and realized there was very little paper left to peel, but that just meant she was able to spend more time actually drawing and coloring.”

In addition to having the paper partially removed from some crayons and completely removed from others, many crayons are also pre-broken.

“I used to get so anxious whenever my son would crush Crayons in his tiny but surprisingly powerful raccoon hands. But with L’il Nubz™, the experience has been comparatively stress-free,” said social media influencer and stay-at-home dad Bo Sabe. “It was also a relief to see the box comes pre-distressed, with dented corners and a broken flap you can barely insert back into the box. That’s one less worry when I hand a new box over to my little bud.”

Daycare workers are also rejoicing, with facilities across the country recommending L’il Nubz™ to their parents.

“L’il Nubz™ aren’t just for preschoolers. We’re recommending them to all of our toddler parents,” said Annie West,­ director of Tots & Bots, a STEM-based daycare­. “We all know that toddlers, and even some older kids, eat their crayons. With L’il Nubz™, there’s one less non-food item making its way into their little digestive systems.”

A representative for Crayola indicated they had a team of researchers working on this project for years before developing L’il Nubz™.

“Our original design kept the crayons in tact, but encased in a virtually indestructible carbon steel shell,” said scientist Alexa Adams. “But we found in testing that we had grossly underestimated a preschooler’s determination to rip off the paper and break the crayon. So instead of preserving the crayon’s integrity, it was still destroyed, and more valuable creative time had been expended on freeing the crayon from its case.”

“Not to mention,” Adams continued, “Parents weren’t keen on spending $799.99 on a single box of crayons.”

A 24-ish pack of L’il Nubz™ retails for $24.99. Most packs come with 2-3 crayons already missing, so you don’t have to worry about looking for them under your entertainment center or between your sofa cushions.

“Her use of color since L’il Nubz is nothing short of inspirational,” said McKenzie of her daughter’s newest creation.

“Her use of color since L’il Nubz is nothing short of inspirational,” said McKenzie of her daughter’s newest creation.