Wonderstruck

I am not a giddy with anticipation type of person. I’m more of a pessimist than that, after all. I think it has to do with my only child status. Growing up with parents that didn’t buy into popular ideologies, both from a frugality and a simplicity type of standard, perhaps I cushioned the lack of popularity blow by creating a narrative in my head that the “thing” everyone else had and I did not must be lame. Looking back, mom and dad were right. Their refusal to stock the deep freeze with the TV dinners my other classmates ate each night turned out to be an excellent parenting decision. I still gravitate to produce stands and meat markets as a result. Because of them, I’m a reader instead of a television watcher. I’m a scratch baker and a subpar seamstress. Frugality and simplicity breed character. Maybe I’m still making up mental defense strategies to make myself feel better. It’s just that I tend not to buy in on things that are uber popular. I assume it won’t work, will fall from the pedestal of popularity quickly, or just isn’t worth my time. This year may have changed all my theories. 2024 taught me a valuable lesson in how I think about things.

She started prepping like a doomsday conspiracy theorist watching the horsemen of the apocalypse coming over the last hill, this daughter-in-law of mine. Six months before the event, every sentence that left her lips had the word “eclipse” as a subject. Do you have glasses for the eclipse yet? Did you read that we’re in the direct path of the eclipse? Did you know this is the last eclipse of your life? Are you inviting people over for the eclipse? As my husband and I crawled into bed each night, we would rue the day the word eclipse was invented. “Who cares about a dumb eclipse,” we both lamented. Big woofing deal.

Except, it was. My DIL took me by the hand that day in April. She looked in my eyes and said, “Shhhhh,” as she walked me out of the back door into the yard. Glasses were placed in my hand. I was led to a quilt and instructed to lie on my back next to the grandkids. She went back to fetch my husband. Moments later, the world stopped for a several seconds. The temperature dropped. The birds stopped singing. The dogs inexplicably plopped onto the ground and closed their eyes. The darkness was thick and opaque. Tears leaked from my eyes. “I’ve never seen anything like this in all my life,” was the only comment I could utter that made sense. How phenomenal. Wonderstruck.

My daughter-in-law had a repeat performance of her intense planning tendencies in September. Another topic in every sentence. More episodes of her extreme charting and tracking. One evening, my husband asked me, as we were, again, crawling into bed, “Who is this Big Boy person she keeps asking about?” I replied, “I think it’s a what, not a who.” Then, we played a fun game of Abbot & Costello’s “Who’s on first.” I told him it was a train, a special train, though I didn’t know the specifics of what made it special. Somehow, we survived the next weeks of repetitively being told when it was coming, what the route was going to be, and all the stops along the way. Didn’t we want to go and see it? Had we asked Dillan about the train, this son of ours who works for the railroad? Were we inviting people over to see it? Train, train, train, train. Lame.

“Let’s go see this train so she will leave us be,” I said to my husband. He thought it was an end of the street thing. As we approached the tracks, I realized he was barefoot. We all laughed hysterically. We weren’t laughing 2 hours and many delays later as the crowd had swelled, this grown man and his dirty bare feet sitting on the curb in the dark of the night. Then, we heard a commotion. The air became electric. I have never seen anything like the 1941 steam engine locomotive that flew by us that night. You could feel the heat. Big Boy was so clean that the glare he left in his wake was blinding. My heart was beating outside of my body and the tears leaked from the sides of my eyes. How phenomenal. Wonderstruck.

When my daughter died nearly seventeen years ago, I felt like God was giving me a directive. See the things she didn’t see. Do the things she didn’t get to do. But now, I think I misunderstood Him. Perhaps he meant that I should see all the things that she can see now and do all the things she has no need to do anymore. Her adventures are far grander in Heaven. Instead, he put this other girl in my life. She drives me insane as only daughters are able. She obsesses over details. She is relentless with events. She is tenacious with the things she thinks I need to do. She is batting 1000 in 2024. Thank you, Laurali. Thank you for opening my eyes. You are phenomenal. Wonderstruck. Happy New Year.