the finale of The Glimmering

     She smiled again, her eyes roaming eagerly around the room. And then they lit on something, and she drew in her breath.
    "Oh....even those? Are those free?" she asked hesitantly. I followed her longing gaze to the red shoes across the room.
    "The employment office, well, they finally found me a part-time job, a very good one. It's a real chance for me, for all three of us. And I get to start tomorrow, but I was worried sick about.....about what I would wear."
    I nodded, my heart pounding so I could barely breathe.
    "We have two or three lovely dresses that have that shade of red in them," I told her excitedly. "I was just admiring them earlier, and I bet they'll fit you. Also, we've got a great children's section."
    When the girls and I wrapped her packages an hour later and offered her a ride home, I noticed a very strange thing. Something I'll probably never fully understand if I live to be a hundred.
    I put the pretty, red shoes in the top of the last sack, and as I folded it closed on them, I thought....Well, don't think I'm crazy, I thought  I saw them glimmering.
    The girls were exhausted that night and went to bed early. I tucked Susan in and listened to her prayers, then went into Kathy's room.
    On her dresser was a large and rare rock, full of pieces of glistening quartz. The light from her lamp reflected off it and sent sparkles in a thousand directions.
    "Oh, Kathy, it's beautiful! Where'd you find it?" I breathed, touching the exquisite thing carefully.
    "In the road today, Mommy."
    "But I thought there was only a feed sack...." I began, then stopped as tears started behind my eyes. There had been a dirty, old feed sack out there, and there had been a treasure, too, hidden, possibly, under it.
    The trick was to look past the dinginess, beyond it to the treasure. Past the everyday to the glimmer. Past the despair, to the sparkle of hope.
    "Honey, can I ask you something?" I whispered, searching her eyes. "How do you know when something is glimmering?"
    And my little dreamer, my little girl who had never bothered to learn differently, looked at me as though I had asked a stupid question.
    "Just about everything glimmers, Mommy, if you look."    :)


from Jeanne -
This entire story reminds me of a saying by Einstein.

     There are two ways to live your life: One is as though nothing is a miracle, and the other is as though everything is a miracle.
     Choose Miracles!