Not a Blast...

but more of a gentle twinkle from the past.  I wrote this for a friend's newsletter when Tori was in 1st grade, and recently he sent it back to me.  When I saw it for the first time in years I realized that I loved it--not my telling of it, but the memory of the experience--just as much as I did in the moment.

"I know a story about the Big Dipper," my daughter says, looking up. We're walking to the playground in the quiet spring night air.

 

"Tell me," I say.

 

"See that smallest star, at the end of the handle?" She points.  "That's the youngest brother. There was once a little girl who had no brothers. She made beautiful suits of clothes for seven brothers, and they made her their sister. But one day a calf came to the door and said that the buffalo herd wanted her. The brothers said they couldn't have her, so the the buffalo attacked. The girl and her brothers climbed up a tree to escape, and the tree kept growing higher and higher until they reached the sky. And they began to glow."

 

She points again.

 

"And that's them?"  

She nods.  "That's them. They turned into stars."  

"Is that true, do you think?" I ask as we reach the playground.  

"Its a legend Mom," she says, and climbs onto the swing. Her toes barely reach the ground as she pushes off.

 

"You pick if you believe it."

 

She stretches her feet toward the sky so hard that her long hair brushes the gravel in the dark, and I absolutely believe that a child can climb high enough to join the stars.