“So, how was your day?” I asked.
The evening was creeping into our front yard and the boys and I, too restless to sit in the basement in front of the TV, were sitting on the front porch stalking fireflies.
“Good,” said the youngest.
“Are you on level 3 or 4 in swimming?”
“Level 3. I still need to work on my back crawl…Mom, do you see any?”
“Not yet, they were probably scared away by the basketball noises.” (We had just finished a game of P.I.G.) “They’ll be back if we’re quiet. Keep watching.”
“How about you?” I turned to my oldest. “How was swimming today?”
“Great. I talked to my teacher about being a lifeguard. She says I have to do a dead man float for 5 minutes.”
“Wow! How long can you do it now?”
“I can float on my back for 5 minutes. But I need to practice my dead man float still.”
“Mmmmm….Look! I saw one over there!”
A sharp yellow light lit up briefly in the darkness underneath the oak trees. Both boys stood up quickly and ran to it.
“Can you see it?” I said.
“I lost it,” said the oldest.
“Do we have a jar to put it in?” said the youngest.
“Nah, we don’t need a jar,” I said. “Just try to catch it. Make sure you don’t squish it though.”
“There it is!” said the youngest.
His brother spun in the air to look. “Where?”
“I see it! Further into the middle!” I said.
“Look Mom! They’re all over!” said the youngest.
I looked. From my front porch bench, the outlines of my two boys were framed by the rustling black maze of leaves and overhanging branches and the silent, solid trunks of our two grandparent oaks. The boys were tensed, hands positioned in mannequin like poses as they waited for just one firefly to come close enough to catch.
The brave, lone scout that started our hunt had apparently signaled the all clear. Yellow lights were nearly everywhere we looked. It wouldn’t be long now.
“I got one!” said the youngest. “Mom, look! I got one!”
“Me too!” said the oldest.
They rushed back cupping the small, slender bugs that had been snatched out of the night sky by their quick fingers. The first one flew away the minute my youngest opened his hands. My oldest, a more seasoned catcher, watched as his bug crawled slowly over his nail and finger, examining the strange terrain. It stopped as if to test the softness of the strange, new surface. It signaled its findings to its comrades and moved on stopping and signaling three more times. Then slowly, it spread its wings and returned to the darkness.
“Coooool,” the oldest said.
“Way cool,” I answered.
Satisfied, the boys sat back down on the porch snuggling up on both sides of me. We watched the blinking lights and talked about nothing….and everything at the same time.
