The Eclipse

Last year in October we experienced an annular solar eclipse, and I wasn't prepared. I didn't secure eclipse glasses, and therefore wasn't able to really see the event. I ran around all that day to find some to no avail. The trees had cool shadows, and I kinda got some of the experience using a tablet camera, but there wasn't anything Finn could wrap his head around. I was very upset I didn't do better. 

When I found out that we were going to have a total solar eclipse in 2024 I wanted to make sure I was ready. I ordered the glasses a month out, and had big plans to take Finn out of school and ride him over to the lake where it would be in the path of maximum totality. 

When we got close to the day of my plans started to fall apart. Finn has been out of school for a decent bit this year, so pulling him out a whole day for a five minute event seemed like a bad idea. But even beyond that the weather didn't cooperate, and it seemed like no matter where we were the clouds were going to get in the way. 

I was still determined to try though, and I talked to his school about letting me come and pull him out for  a bit the day of just in case. I upgraded the generic glasses I bought for him with a paper plate to ensure he couldn't look around him, and I planned my whole day that day to show up just in time. 

At lunch that day I went and ate at Rosa's right around the corner from his school, but it was so cloudy I didn't have high hopes it was even going to be worth doing. Then right as I left Rosas I looked around and many people were staring at the sky. The clouds broke just in time! I rushed over to ABC with minutes to spare. 

When I got there some of his teachers were already outside with glasses looking at the start of the event. Finn came out (the only kid they let watch it) and I gave him the special plate glasses and he kept trying to look and see what we were talking about. It didn't really hit him until the totality and suddenly it felt like night time and the automatic street lights came on. He danced around and said "it looks like its time to go home!" It was a moment I will remember forever. I told him "something like this won't happen again until you are in college probably" which really sunk in for him. 

As the totality was ending he gave an extra effort to look through the glasses and see what was going on. He finally noticed the sun was just a sliver, and understood then what the eclipse meant. Casey made a mention that he was the exact age when most people started having core memories they would keep into adulthood, and she said we might have made one that day. They took pictures of us watching its ending, and I just tried to soak up the moment and the fact that the entire event went better than I had hoped for in my wildest dreams. 

As I left and he went back into the school I felt a huge sense of victory. The next day I talked to Adam and he said that usually the same spot on the planet only sees something like that every couple hundred years. The thought that we were alive in the exact time that happened in Leander, on a day when we could experience it together, and the clouds parted at just the right time....well sometimes things just line up in life.