lightning bugs

Lightning bugs.

That’s what we called them, because they would light up the peach trees as they were bugging around the orchard.

We kept some in a mason jar with a holey lid beside our cots on the old school bus.

At the sound of Salito’s whistle, the lightning bugs flashed their lights.

They softly lit the bus with warm light.

It was beautiful to behold.

Salito’s abuelo told me this story.

“Ah, when Salito was born,” he said, “His mamí wrapped him in a blanket and snuggled close to him.

His big brown eyes were wide open. 

He was as still as the water in a farm pond on a summer afternoon. 

A lightning bug came into the room through the open window and lit gently on his nose. 

I watched in wonder as he blinked his eyes three short blinks and the lightning bug blinked it’s light three short blinks.

He blinked his eyes one long blink and it blinked its light one long blink.

Was my newborn grandson talking with the lightning bug? 

Was such a thing possible? 

The lightning bug took flight and flew out the window through which it came.

When he was two years old, he laid on his back underneath the shade of a peach tree here on John’s Island.

I sat beside him him, looking up into the branches heavy peaches, colors of red, yellow and green that we can't make on our own but that nature creates with a stroke from a mysterious brush and palate. 

I was sharing my thoughts with Salito, talking quietly and circling the pad of my thumb around and around his chubby cheek, when a lightning bug lit on his nose and flashed its soft, yellow light three times. 

His eyes turned inward toward the lightning bug. 

He blinked three times himself, as if he were sharing a soft light of his own that was unknown to the human world but could only be understood by the natural world around him. 

I knew in that moment then that he was special, the special kind of person who comes into the world once and a while.”