Chasing Aurora | A Mom’s Hope
Journal Entry, 2011
Three of my sons pile into the car in response to my unprecedented late night invitation. I am in the back seat.
We are driving north to see an Aurora Borealis, rare in the Colorado sky.
The teen brothers chat strategy about which road to take for the best view of the northern horizon.
Along the mountain ridge and forest edge we race toward the magnetic storm.
Headlights on the county roads temporarily blind and I squint to focus.
Clouds hover in a long low line, like dewy gauze fabric tumbling and unrolling in the distance a veil for our line of vision. We wonder if the clouds will interfere.
Pulled over, car engine off. All sound shushed but for the heater and movie soundtrack a son has chosen.
The music sets a mood of expectation. They all settle in, lean, stare, evaluate.
A ridge of mountain range creates a jagged horizon.
Behind the ridge, in the distance, Denver glows and illuminates the settling clouds like a large boiling cauldron of yellow steam.
Above the clouds, clear dark sky and stars.
We sit without words and wait.
I get edgy, feeling the need to create conversation since this outing was my idea.
My husband is usually the fun one. I wonder if they will only remember me as a mom who did dishes and laundry, worried at the mirror, went to bed early.
The quiet settles.
They are happy to simply be together.
Present
Waiting
Looking
And I silently pray please a dozen times. I ask for this divinely shared experience,
That I might go down in their history
Tethered to God’s flaming sky of color.
I let them decide when we will surrender the quest.
In the end, the distant city lights drown out the pulses of natural wonder.
So we head down a back road toward home, minus the thrill of discovery.
Like most things, the process was the point, not the outcome
I hope they will make a lifetime of finding their own Auroras.
And maybe, years from now, they’ll remember the night we stayed up late
to chase the sky.
Image credit : National Geographic.