Uplift is the name of the alarm on her bedside digital clock–just four notes are used: Mi Mi Mi Do Ti La, Mi Mi Mi Do Ti Do Ti La, then repeat. The gentle tune awakens her as expected at 2:00 AM.
She is a single mom this weekend. Her husband is away on a business trip. She has allowed her ten-year-old daughter to invite her best friend for a sleepover. The two girls are deeply asleep, as is her six-year-old son. But this night is too special. She must awaken them for an experience she hopes they will remember their whole lives.
The children are bleary eyed as she urges them into their heavy winter coats, mittens, hats, and boots. They do not complain. They knew she would wake them for this event. They trust that she would not do this for just any old thing.
The drive is short, just a quarter mile or so. The van she drives barely has time to warm up. The air temperature is a crisp 22 degrees. She has brought sleeping bags, which she spreads upon the snow covered ground. The sky is clear; there is no moon.
She lies down on the sleeping bags. The children cuddle next to her body. She covers them all with a down comforter.
“Now,” she instructs, “just look up.”
Her son spots the first one. His arm pops out from under the comforter as he points to the sky and says, “I saw one!”
No sooner has he said this when another streak of light crosses the sky above. The girls both cry out as they do during fireworks, “Ohhhhh!”
She is pleased that the meteor shower–the Quadrantids–is in full display tonight. Shooting star after shooting star, one about every 15 seconds, appear and disappear in flashes that delight.
There is a short interval lasting about one minute when the streaks occur so rapidly they can not count them fast enough. Cozied up in the nest they have made, they watch for an entire hour before she decides it’s time to go home to their beds.
It is a magical night they will remember. They remember it to this day–25 years later.
Copyright DJ Anderson, 2022
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