Drop of light

My only purpose is to be,

A drop of light shining in a Sea of Divine Love.

We are all drops sparkling in that ocean,

And that is all I ever wanted to be.

Alaska's Aurora

Come out to see the aurora, he said. I stopped preparing supper, slipped on my down jacket, donned my warmest hat and gloves, and stepped into felt-lined pacs. Glancing out from the cabin's porch into the spire-like spruce, I did not see him at first, melting into the trees. In a worshipful stance, his arms were raised to the skies. Often working outside, he was at home there.  A goddess's beacon of light, the aurora winked through the thin tree limbs like dark lashes on a flirtatious night sky. The aurora seemed to appear and disappear on a capricious whim.

 I pulled up my down coat to my nose and buried it like a husky in a tightly wrapped tail of welcoming warmth. Far below zero, the cold clenched my breathing and pinched my nose tightly, as I slipped farther out into the Alaskan darkness. My boots broke through the drift's stiff coating and through to its soft underbelly. Looking back at the beckoning light of our cabin, how tiny it appeared in the unforgiving, cold, black, Alaskan night.

The White-haired Lady on the New Step

Kay, with her peculiar Charlie Chaplin gait, walked by carrying her cane. She was on her way to the ladies' room, a break from her hour on the NewStep stationary bike at my gym. Her white hair only hinting at her ninety years. On her way back to her bike, she stopped to answer, “How are you doing today, Kay?”

“Oh, my one leg is shorter than the other after the surgery, and I don’t walk as well,” she answered, in her German accent.

 After the big ice storm, Kay’s neighbor could not move her own garbage can herself. So Kay was moving it for her when Kay’s foot slipped. She fell hard on the concrete driveway and crushed her pelvis. After surgery, she convalesced in the rehab facility, the only one in town.

Ten years ago, my father-in-law was at that center for two weeks. He became depressed at the bleak atmosphere in the room. I visited him every day. We sat on the front porch, watched the trees sway in the wind, and smelled the flowers blooming by the walkway as visitors walked by.

Kay was there for three months, unable to move around, her body in a gurney, trussed like a roast turkey with its wings tied.

And yet here she was, unaware of what a feat that had been.