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"What color is that one?"

I smiled, hearing my daughter question my young granddaughter, as fireworks exploded overhead. Memories of another Fourth came rushing back.

The year I turned eighteen was rough. We lost my mom in the fall, and that February I had an optometrist appointment. The doctor gently explained about an eye condition, undiagnosed until that visit, which would slowly rob me of most of my sight. I barely heard the news. My plan to enter the art program at the nearby university smashed into pieces so small they could never be repaired. I looked into an empty and frightening future.

Overwhelmed, my family began the demanding process of dealing with yet another devastating blow, but this time, amazingly, with a different attitude. Blind jokes, look-out-for-that' comments and how many fingers?' became common. Somehow we moved toward the future without fear well, without as much fear.

The Fourth came, and along with it, our customary outing. Parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews grabbed our favorite board games, take-out dinner and headed for Town Lake. Still hours before the city-wide fireworks show, the area already bustled with people and activity. Parking blankets and lawn chairs close to the water's edge, we ate and cut-up, watched people and told jokes until the Austin Civic Orchestra began their performance of beautiful patriotic tunes, alerting all that it was time to begin. As the sun slipped behind the Austin skyline, the darkness erupted with glory.

We were silenced by magnificence.

My little sister waited until a gorgeous series of rocket bursts illuminated the sky. "What color was that one?"

"Red," I answered instantly. I was clueless colors had already begun to fade and blur, melding into a strange grayish haze.

She laughed. "Not even close."

With each subsequent explosion, one of my sisters asked the question' and I answered randomly and confidently. We got the giggles over the insanity of the game. I don't think we've ever laughed harder.

"What color is that one?" my daughter asked her child.

"Well, Grandma says they're all white," Sydnee whispered thoughtfully. "Don't tell her, but that one was blue."

Exactly what I guessed.

Learn more about this author, Debby Dyess.
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