A bouncing small girl stumbles along the sea wettened oak pier in bubbling excitement as fireworks opened up the dark sky. She points at them in wonderment and, mouth agape, the flashes and sparks dance in her eyes. She lets out tiny squeals and squeaks while her father stands back to watch, tears from another time rolling silently down his face. She clumsily lanks her other hand half forgetting the ice cream she is holding, and lost in another world she tries to stutter small words of amazement to her father who forces a smile.
Addilyn,
We saw the lights today. Tomorrow will make two years without you. . . Kari still asks where you are. I told her that you make the fireworks happen every year, and even though she used to be afraid of the noise, now she can’t stop looking up at the sky.
“Brite! Pretti!” She screams happily as she bounces up and down and gives innocent giggles, trying not to stumble from excitement. “Eeek!” She shrieked playfully throwing her hands to cover her head in careful joy. He picks her up and onto his shoulders and holds her tiny shoes in his hands as her eyes drink the euphoric lights above. Drops of blue color paint the air like electric rain. “Looke momi did that one!” Kari cried. “That's her favourate!”
Her father couldn’t stop trembling. It was the first time Kari enjoyed fireworks since her mother was gone.
“That’s your favorite color silly.” he said in a cracked voice
“Y-ya but thats whiy it’s hur favourate.” She stammered kiddishly.
She says things like this often. I always get a little upset every time. . .It’s hard to hear. . . . The light of the world is dim without you. . .I only wish I can stay strong enough for Kari.
“I-s she gonna come out after is done?” Kari asked.
Her father put his hand to his face, minutes passed.
“No, she can’t” He answered defeatedly.
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Mom,
I’m ten now, Daddy told me a long time ago that you didn't really do the fireworks. It made me sad, but we still go every year and I watch them hoping that maybe they’ll make you come back. I like light, it’s bright and happy and makes me think of you, they are still kinda scary, but they make me smile. Daddy acts strange. . . he said he got fired and he can’t take things anymore. I wish you were here.
Addylyn,
Everything here is always dark . . . I've always hated living here but I can’t help staying because I know you've loved this place. The north isn't the most cheerful place to mourn, too much cold. . . .
Kari ruffled her short cut hair in drowsiness as she walked up the stairs to the bathroom. She saw it was shut and knocked on the door lightly, it was too early for him to be up but. . .
“Dad are you in there?” She said tiredly, looking around the hall she was reminded of the packed up boxes in the hallways. Old childhood toys strewn into old boxes, clothes and small items, only existing because of a foreclosure. . . She pretended they weren't there.
“Please leave me be. . . shouldn't you be in bed?. . .” She heard his weak ghost voice from the door.
“High School is a day breaker.” She quietly joked. “I have to get ready.”
To her slight surprise the door slowly opened to a crack to allow her entry. She already prepared for the blood he forgot to clean to be somewhere on the counter inside.
Mom,
It’s only been a week after my eighteenth birthday. . .
And he just couldn't handle it.
I stand on still dead grass, and he’s underneath it. A tombstone at my feet reads,
Here Lies David Nolumen
Loving father and husband
1977 - 2015
He had lost hope, it’s been gone for a long time. . . Over the years he’s been stepped on by others, fired from jobs from depression, wallowing in yearning for a life he expected to live for the rest of his life but was taken from him. I feel like him too sometimes. . . I know you started young and the shock was so unexpected. . . Going through death at 22, having the pressure of being alone.
I hope he found you.
I leave a bouquet of blue roses on the tombstone and sit to think in the warm dark night. It’s summer now, and the fireflies are lazily buzzing around. I see a young woman at another grave not far from me, she sits as I do in misery, grieving a loss of her own.
I think back to the lights we used to go see every year, how happy they made me, how the lights sparkled with hope, and how they always gave me the hope you’d come walking down the pier once they were over. Something I used to be scared of turned into beauty, just from a simple concept. A concept of hope.
The fireflies lights sing their song around me and take me back to that night. . .to the sea splashed pier and the flashing happiness in the sky. . . . and it made me think of something.
If everyone was like a firefly, they would carry light behind them wherever they go. But how would they ever know if it was always on their back? It can see the light on all the other fireflies, but it might never know it has their own if no one tells them.
It takes other fireflies to make them realize they have the light on their back, and that they've had it all along. . .
I stand from the cruel grass and pick up half of the blue flowers from my bouquet, I slowly make my way over to the other woman, crying silently in suffering. She doesn't notice me until I set the blue flowers on the tombstone. She looks up at me, tear ridden and hopeless, and suddenly hugs me tightly weeping uncontrollably.
“Thank you . . .” she whispers.
