Life’s Sparkles
The children filed out just as they had practiced for the program. The father beside me lowered his video camera as I stowed mine. He wiped his eyes and took a deep breath as he watched his youngest daughter walk past us down the aisle.
He turned to me and whispered, “It’s just so significant, you know? This year, kindergarten. Next year—first grade. But it’s all going so fast. Before you know it—they’ll be walking down the aisle for graduation, then their wedding…”
“Whoa! Not so fast,” I said, laughing. “Don’t rush it!”
“I’m telling you—it just all feels so significant,” he said.
Significant…
Good word.
Important, momentous, noteworthy, substantial, weighty.
There are so many moments like this. Big, shiny, significant moments a parent tries to freeze in memory. The first time you hold them in your arms, first step, first soccer game. First day of school. Graduation.
But there are so many more.
The everyday ones. Milk mustaches, Halloween costumes, Yahtzee games. Singing together on road trips, playing cards, making sandcastles and cookies. Sunburns, cactus thorns, and skinned knees. Recitals, concerts, ballgames.
All those moments, in all their significance, all their sparkle. We faithfully record them in photos and videos and imprint them in our memories so we can pull them out, time after time, and savor them.
Several years ago, when my granddaughter and I were talking about her Christmas wish list, I asked her what kind of clothes she would like to have. “I like blue, Grandma. And I like it best if it has something sparkly.”
“Sparkly?”
“Yeah, Grandma. Life is better with sparkles.”
Have you ever heard anything better than that? Even though she’s outgrown the glitter stage, for the rest of my life I will remember her saying that to me. It’s the first thing I think of whenever I think of her. It shines in my memory like sunlight sparkling off a gemstone.
That year, as I shopped for something sparkly for a little girl to wear, here’s what I discovered.
There are different kinds of sparkle.
I’m not the kind of person who reaches for sparkly things. I couldn’t care less about diamonds or glitz. For me, it’s all about the sunlight glinting in a mountain stream, the glitter of sunshine on freshly fallen snow. The twinkle in my granddaughter’s eyes when she smiles. The gleam of a tear on my daughter’s face as she speaks her wedding vows. Those are the sparkles I’m looking for—not the big splashy ones, but the ones woven into our daily lives.
Sometimes the sparkle is hard to find.
It would have been easy to find blue tops in her size, but it took a little extra effort to find the sparkle. I often get bogged down in function and affordability and forget to look for the fun. Her words remind me that it’s worth the effort to look for that little bit of zing. It’s significant, too. Don’t underestimate it. Don’t settle for life without it.
Sometimes you have to change the way you look at things.
I’m sure you’re familiar with fabric that appears one color from one direction, and a different color from an alternate direction. Or the fad that hit kids’ clothes a few years ago: you rub the sequins one way to see one design, but if you rub it the other way, a different design appears. Sometimes we have to alter our point of view if we want to see the significance in the design.
Sparkles reflect the light.
It’s light that lends sparkles their glory. They catch it, hold it, bend it, and send it out again. But sometimes the dark is so thick, the light can’t penetrate. It’s up to us to reach through the darkness, grab the sparkle and pull it free, until it catches the light…
My granddaughter and I wish you many of life’s shining moments. Bold and flashy like sequins and glitter. Or subtle, like fine golden threads woven through our lives.
Search for the kind of sparkle that brightens your life. Pull it out, hold it up to the light, savor the gleam…
Then share it.
What kind of sparkle are you looking for?
Where have you found it?
Are you savoring it?
How are you sending it back into the world?
