They had a little ritual. Nearly every day, they would take a walk down the street, around a corner, past an apartment complex and to a small convenience store. It worked out pretty well that they always seemed to have a reason to go to the store. Sometimes they would pick up milk or some other item. There was always time for a Popsicle or ring pop or some other treat.
Along the walk, they would talk about "pretends" - the girl liked Peter Pan, Dorothy of Oz, Batman, and many, many other characters - and of course what was going on in the real world.
Sometimes they would sit in the shade of a small tree by a small office complex that was across the street from the apartments. This was a good place to finish off a Popsicle and then knit daisy chains.
One day they were sitting together, a car drove up to the automated gate in the apartments across the street. The gate sensed the approaching car. The gate began to open.
JoAnna's eyes grew wide as her face as she realized what she was seeing. A gate was opening without any human nearby. She'd been having her doubts, but now they were gone. "Daddy, daddy," she shouted. "Magic is for reals!"
There was something about the purity, joy and surprise of that moment. I never forgot that moment. It was funny on the one hand, and yet every parent knows that pretends can only last a little while. Reality sets in.
Reality, of course, often brings kindness and blessings. Reality can bring good health, good jobs, good homes, good company and good family.
And yet a parent cannot forget that reality is sometimes unkind. Reality can bring loss, and suffering, and death. Reality also means very little magic, at least as we define it today. The celebrities we see, the programs we watch, the books we read, are simply not real. They are projections of the big slide projector known as life. You know what I mean. Santa's delivery system is a lot more mundane than people would like to imagine.
I remember on that sunny morning desperately wishing I could make magic for reals for my little girl. I just desperately wished that magic could be real for her forever.
You do the best you can as a parent, but you are not magic. A parent can offer love and all the power and frailty of human nature and experience. We make so many mistakes. We achieve so many victories. And as the years pass, the elements both good and bad all blur. They, and combined experiences with many other people, grow a child.
She's 17 now, and two days away from leaving for the first time for college. New York City is how far? 80 million miles? Magic ceased to be real a long time ago.
But here is the reward of reality: JoAnna has grown into a young woman. She can out-think, out-talk and out-write her father. She can smile like a thousand novas, and she is stunning when she wants to be. She handled a challenging summer job with grace and maturity. She has worked long and hard in high school to fulfill a dream to attend a college in New York and accomplish quite a bit along the way.
Along the way, she has learned many lessons about life. So have her parents. One thing we have learned is that when a little girl grows up, she brings enormous challenges and joys. And with each challenge, and each joy, she grows up a little more. She grows up, and she is ready to live life more and more on her own. She has blossomed like the flowers, but with more durability and a future bright as LaConner's bulb fields in full bloom.
Where did the world go? What happened to the reality? Whatever happened to the little girl with daisy chains and perpetual smiles whose dearest wish was a Popsicle from the store?
Somewhere, a piece of a father is still sitting in the shade of a small tree watching the scene across the street. A gate opens.
And he learns across more than a decade of years that she was right all along.
Magic is for reals.