The Light of the Fireflies

The other night as I sat quilting, my thoughts slipped back to the time as a child I watched our neighbor, “Aunt” Bell, quilt. Her quilting frame hung from the ceiling, the quilt top already stitched together into multicolored squares placed over batting and backing. Her small hands, gnarled from arthritis, held her needle and thread gracefully as she dipped the fine point into the cloth, pulled it through back up and then down and up, again and again. Her stitches were just so, spaced only a small distance from each other. To me, as I watched, the completed stitches made a trail through the colorful patchwork material, the sewing of the fabric to the batting causing the material to pop up slightly, magically accenting the colors and shapes. Fascinated, I could just imagine what the quilt would look like when Aunt Bell had finished her magic.
     Suddenly, as I sat contemplating, the power went off in my home.  Complete darkness surrounded me. Samson, my border collie, jumped up from where he had been lying, came over and placed his body over my feet. Sitting still, I allowed my eyes to adjust to the blackness. Turning my gaze to the open doorway, I realized the lights were out all over the hillside. Slowly, I laid my quilting down, removed my feet from underneath Samson, stood and went through the door to the porch outside. Samson followed. In the distance, where the town lights normally placed a glowing crown around the mountains, I could see no glow. Darkness adorned the complete scene.
     And then, there they were, blinking intermediately all around within the darkened night. Fireflies! Their glowing body flashes seemed to keep time to the beating of my heart. The night danced with sparks! What a marvelous scene! 
     Standing there on the porch, in the warm night by the light of the fireflies, the so-called darkness evolved into Aunt Bell’s quilt hanging from the ceiling. The sparks became the stitches, dipping in and out, creating the most beautiful patchwork quilt I have ever seen. 
     All senses and emotions slowly became sharply prevalent. Samson pressed close by my legs, warm with life. A hint of honeysuckle floated on the breeze. The wood of the porch railing warmed to my touch. My eyes swam with tears in the beauty of the moment, and then dried as the moment lasted beyond the depth of emotion. 

The wonder of the universe is there all the time...within the blink of a firefly, in the touch of an animal, in the scent of a flower, in the steady moving hands on a patchwork of  memories. For me, when the power went out, the power came on—the power of once again realizing that life matters! That living in the moment is experiencing the best the world has to offer. Time ticks by, a sure thing. It’s those ticks, those sparks, those stitches that quilts the whole picture. 
     Seventy years later...I can still see Aunt Bell and her steadily moving hands. Now...she’s quilting in the light of fireflies.