Fireflies

Last night at dusk as I walked my dog on Riverside Drive, tiny bits of phosphorescence shone against the hedgerow bordering New York City’s four-mile-long Riverside Park, an urban oasis that stretches from 72^nd to 158^th Street along the Hudson River. I can’t remember the last time that I saw fireflies here, despite the fact that Dev and I traverse this path almost daily. 

Signaling their readiness to copulate through a chemical reaction in their abdomens, a kind of fire in the belly, these avatars of summer emit rhythmic bursts of light. Each firefly species has a different flashing pattern, allowing them to announce their presence to suitable mates. I counted the pulses emanating like strobe lights from dozens of beetles as they flitted from branch to branch: two… three… two. 

Different cultures interpret this morse code in contrasting ways. Some see lightening bugs as visitors from the dead, ghostly little reminders of departed souls or omens of an impending death. Others think them tiny beacons of hope, symbols of love and romance. Still others find them wistful reminders of the transience of beauty. 

Watching this luminescent dance in the soft early evening light, I was transported back to the little Virginia farmhouse where I raised my girls, a few hundred yards above the Great Falls of the Potomac. Fireflies had been as much a part of a summer evening as the heat and humidity. Just as I had as a child, my daughters captured lightening bugs, imprisoning them in mason jars with holes punched in the top … but just until bedtime. Fireflies only live for about two months under the best of circumstances, and being trapped in a mason jar without food or water cannot be described as optimal.

One of my happiest firefly memories is of the late June evening of my younger daughter’s wedding in the field down the road from our house. From there to the towering trees bordering our property, thousands of these little lanterns bestowed a blessing on her marriage, a fireworks celebration of such delicacy and beauty that it brought tears to my eyes. 

I remember my husband Dan whispering to me as he held my hand that our love would always shine as bright. Four years after his passing, I felt his presence last night as I marveled at the mystery of one tiny beetle finding its soulmate amongst the crowd, the sweetness of such luck, the poignancy of its inevitable end.