Fireflies

"Mom, you need to come here and see what just came out of the firewood," yelled my young son. The area of our back yard, just above the bushes was covered with tiny blinking lights. "Those are fireflies," I said. "Haven’t you seen them before?" At that moment it occurred to me that he had missed out on some of the many wonders of childhood that I had the privilege to experience. The seemingly endless hours of carefree play that quenched my thirst for learning were something that had been overlooked in his still young life.

Growing up as a country kid in Bethany, Connecticut forty- some years ago, playing was a high priority. We played from dawn until dusk, twelve months of the year. In the summer we were outside until the night’s dew made the toes of our sneakers wet. Time was spent with your best friends. We rode bikes for hours on one lane back roads, often stopping alongside the road to play in the tall grass, trying to catch a Monarch butterfly, or searching through an old abandoned barn to see what treasures we could find, sometimes coming home with a rusty old horse shoe or a handful of hair from a horses tail. We would sit in the sun for hours braiding the long crisp hairs into seemingly beautiful bracelets.

We built a fort in the woods and called it "Hardwork." It was made from sticks and old chicken wire. It had no roof so that we could watch the stars at night. It had an old potbellied stove in the center for a decoration. The field mice had built a nest in it, but it didn’t matter. It was cool.

Our friends next door had a chicken coop in their yard and we were allowed to play in it. It served for many years as the official sleepover house of the neighborhood. Countless hours were spent fixing it up with curtains, blankets, etc. We never did spend an entire night in there, as our imaginations would always run wild after the sun went down and we would run quickly down the hill to the safety and familiarity of our own homes.

Fireflies always meant that summer had arrived. After dinner we would gather our peanut butter jars, fill them with grass, poke holes in the lids for air and catch as many as we could. I kept mine on the windowsill in my bedroom, where their twinkling lights and the soft summer breezes would lull me to sleep at night.

Sadly my son had missed out on this wonderful part of life. He and his friends ride bides, but usually to the store down the street where they quickly make their purchases and return home again to continue playing their video games. Their sleepovers consist of being dropped off by a parent, watching television, playing video games or going to the mall. The plastic Little Tykes log cabin in the back yard quickly lost its appeal. After all, if you didn’t build it yourself, what fun was it?

He missed the Monarch butterflies and the fireflies. City life isn’t conducive to their existence. His life has been filled with luxuries, where life moves too quickly to stop and experience the small things.

Our life has changed, not by choice but by fate. We live in an old farmhouse, far away from the everyday hustle and bustle of the city. He spends more time outside. He has noticed that the flowers we have planted attract the beautiful orange and blue winged butterflies. He loves dusk in the summer when the fireflies come out and seem to beckon "catch us if you can!" He is mine and has now learned the wonderment of childhood. It was always there, right in his own back yard.