Promises

There are lots of stories about the aurora.  In Finland, it's the sparks thrown up by a fox racing across the snow.  The Norse believed it was the shields and armor of the Valkyrie as they carried the souls of the triumphant dead to Valhalla.  For the Chinese it was the flames of celestial dragons waging a war of good and evil.  Various cultures attribute the lights to dancing spirits, with the notable exceptions of the Eskimo tribes that believe that the dead are playing ball with the skull of a walrus--and one particularly questionable tribe that believes that it's walrus spirits playing ball with the head of a human. Depending on who is asked, it can be a sign of good or evil. The one closest to my heart, though, belongs to the Algonquin, who believed the lights to be the light from the fires of their creator, a signal to his people that he was still there, watching over them.

All my life I'd wanted to see the lights.  When we moved up here, I figured my chance had come.  It was practically a guarantee.  Up here you can see the aurora three out of four nights between August and April as long as the sky is clear.  I wasn't so lucky.  The first month we were here I looked for them night after night but I never saw them.  There was always too much light pollution, or they came in so late that I was asleep.  When I did finally see them I was disappointed.  I had expected the great swirling rivers of turquoise and emerald, flaring from all ends of the sky, that I had seen in the photographs.  What I got were small glowing bands that hugged the distant horizon, easily mistaken for clouds or smoke.

The first night I really saw them, I was crying.  We were at a church Halloween party, and in the middle of the candy and costumes and manic joy, I got a call from the obstetrics nurse. The ultrasound had uncovered several significant physiological markers for a genetic disorder.  They wanted us to go Anchorage, 400 miles away, for more in depth testing. 

To say it was overwhelming is an understatement.  We'd only been in Alaska a few weeks.  We knew absolutely no one outside of nodding acquaintance; our nearest family was over 2,000 miles away. The thought of not only arranging travel but finding someone to watch our other five girls, on top of the move and the news about potential complications with the baby, was enough to drown me.  I just sat in the bishop's office, face smudged with greasepaint and tears, trying to pull myself together while Rick comforted me, his voice shaking like mine, while goblins and superheroes ran amuck on the other side of the door. 

At the time, we were still living in a hotel while we waited for our house on post to come available.  It was a half-hour drive.  Rick and I talked in circles on the drive back, trying to adjust and make sense of things.  My mind was numb, my thoughts clumsy and disjointed.   Offhandedly I looked out the window.  There, finally, was the aurora, brilliant teal and curling across the darkness, pacing our car just above the horizon.  After waiting for so long to see it, I had expected to feel awe, wonder, excitement at the magic of it.  I felt none of those things.  Instead, I felt comfort settle around me, heavy as a blanket, as I watched the aurora gambol across the sky.  It was as if the lights were guiding me home.

The tears dried.  My mind began to clear, calm determination replacing bewildered despair.  The lights seemed to whisper a promise that everything would be all right.

That promise was sorely tested.

We buried Rick's mother less than a month later.  His younger brother passed the day after Christmas, and his funeral began our new year.  We discovered that our toddler would need surgery to remove a cyst touching her brain.  Several separations and the anxiety of a birth were endured as well as the thousand small worries and trials of everyday.  I didn't see the aurora again throughout the darkness of the winter except as a green ghost, disappearing as quickly as I saw it.  I clung to its promise that everything would somehow work out.

And it did.  Our daughter was born healthy and strong.  Broken hearts started the first steps towards healing.  Far from our blood family we found a spiritual one deep in the lonesome interior of Alaska.  We have received uncountable kindnesses from neighbors and strangers alike, and been able to share our own.

That's what I see in the gentle dance of the aurora, and why I can watch it caress the stars for hours.  I've found the magic and delight that I always expected to find, but beneath all the wonder there is always the same quiet, steady comfort that I have come to crave.  The challenges of our first year in the north are over, but the world is not easier.  Fires and earthquakes, hurricanes and floods, pestilence and war, selfishness and cruelty and fear...It is too easy to be overwhelmed, to feel hope fading in the face of all the turmoil in the world today.  Then I see the lights, and I don't feel like I'm struggling to keep my head above water.  It doesn't matter whether it is the slow, steady glow or the frenetic dancing river; I still feel the promise, just as strong and sure as it was on that October night long ago.

We are not alone.  We are not forgotten. Everything will be all right.