One of my heroes is George Washington Carver (https://www.tuskegee.edu/support-tu/george-washington-carver)
On this day, MLK Day 2022, this story is for him.
“Hey little lightning bugs.”
At the sound of Carver's voice, the lightning bugs in a mason jar on the table beside our beds began flashing their lights until a warm glow filled our room.
He was that kind of kid.
A special kind of kid.
As a matter of fact, a special thing happened on the day he was born.
Momma swaddled him in an old, tattered blanket, and snuggled him by her side.
His big brown eyes were wide open.
He was as still as the water in a summer pond.
A lightning bug came into the room with the breeze and lit gently on his nose.
I watched in wonder as he blinked his eyes four short blinks and the lightning bug blinked it’s light four short times.
He blinked his eyes three long blinks and it blinked its light three long blinks back.
Was my baby brother communicating with the lightning bug?
Was such a thing possible?
The lightning bug took flight and flew out the window from which it came.
When he was three years old, he was laying on his back underneath the afternoon shade of the old apple tree in the back corner of our yard.
I was laying beside him, looking up into the branches heavy with green apples, a color green we can't rightly make with our paints and thinners but that God seems to be able to create with a stroke from a divine brush and palette.
I was sharing my thoughts about this with Carver, 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 and blinked three times, as if he was sharing a soft light of his own that was yet unknown to human heart and mind but could only be perceived by the natural world around him.
I knew then that he was special, the kind of person who comes into the world every once in a while to help it and make it a better place.
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