Missing nothing
A decade from now, we will not remember the scientific details of today’s total solar eclipse. We won’t remember the temperature dropping, the crickets chirping or the sky turning dark after 30 minutes of eerie glow.
What will stay in our minds forever is the souls with whom we experienced it.
I’M NOT GOING to lie: I was over the solar eclipse hysteria that began two months ago, when the news people started talking regularly about our part of the world being in the “path of totality.” For starters, I’m not into science. Numerous times on my journey to become a college graduate, I took the required Biology 101 only to withdraw a day or two before the deadline because I hated so vehemently. I was probably the only senior to take these freshman-level courses (I had to take Bio 102 as well, I later discovered) and passed by the skin of my teeth. So, so predictable; so, so boring. But the main reason I never cared about the eclipse was the capitalistic aspect. This was a thing made by God and people were charging extra for hotels, selling glasses they received for free and charging to plan “eclipse parties.”
I was not buying it.
So I planned my Monday last week like any other first day of the week … like everything wasn’t going to be closed down and like there weren’t going to be cars pulled over on the sides of urban and rural highways next to residents who’d set up canopies and lawn chairs, holding cameras, sweet tea and cardboard glasses. I took care of business in my office, then set off for a work site in the next county, where a new hire was starting with a trainer.
ABOUT A THIRD OF the way there, my mother texted me to ask where I was. She, my dad, sister, two nephews and my daughter were at my house, armed with grilled hot dogs, Moon Pies, Sunny Delight, Star Crunches and a cake decorated for their “eclipse party” Mom had bought from a bakery. We talked all weekend about watching at my house, which is surrounded by open fields.
“So you aren’t going to be here for this??”
“I need to check on a lady I hired last week who started today and I will be there,” I texted back using speak-to-text. “I’m seriously not doing this on purpose.”
“That’s fine.”
When a woman says something is “fine,” it’s not. One’s mother is not exempt from this. She was upset … and for good reason. Some of my closest remaining family members — not to mention my beloved daughter — were gathered in the same spot to experience an event none of us had ever seen.
A HALF MILE LATER, I’m setting my phone’s navigation app for my home address to find some collection of back roads that will take me from the highway to my house as quickly as possible. I found it in Cedar Spring Road and took it as fast as an SUV can handle it.
It turned out the eclipse was the spectacle everyone said it would be. It really did make the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. It was a beautiful, solemn event that made me remember we humans have much less control of this world than we think.
And while I enjoyed feeling these things, I will one day forget them because — if I’m lucky — other events will happen in my life that push these memories aside one by one. My daughter will get married. My son’s invincibility will be compromised by a car crash. Things like this will happen to overshadow the scientific details of today.
But someday there will be another eclipse and they’ll talk about today. And my mind will not revisit anything scientific, but the effect it all had on my family … the way the children jabbered with “ooo’s” and “ahh’s” and “wows.” The way my dad returned to his nerdy school-age student roots. The way my mom smiled like she wasn’t worried about anything, my sister saying over and over how happy she was to be with all of us.
“Thank you for coming, Daddy,” Kalista said afterward as she hugged me.
I went back to work afterward and was able to check on my new hire before the end of her shift. Another appointment was pushed to tomorrow. Some stuff I planned to do in person today was done over e-mail and conference call. My job will be fine, even with this change of plans.
The work I did instead was much, much more important.
