Mason and I were cuddling really early this morning. We couldn’t sleep and we had pulled the mattress and some covers out to the big living room window so we could look at the sky. The sky was that blue black only very early skies accomplish and there were stars splashed everywhere morphing in the transitional light.
I recollected that both he and Hailey were born in the early mornings and I remembered holding Mason, bundled up and baby ‘toqued,’ in my bed at the hospital. It was after all the panic had passed and the ward was calm. I remember, when he was newly born, hours old, doing the same thing; nestling in the covers and looking out at the morning sky. The skies on his morning were tinged with angry pumpkin from the fires, making it especially memorable.
Angry pumpkin pretty much also sums Mason up. He was born with electric orange hair and when he cried, his hair actually turned three shades more neon. I realize there is no physiological way Mason could have seen those stars past the six-inch baby focus, but he was looking nonetheless. Mason has always looked at and studied the stars and planets. It is because both Hailey and Mason were born early in the morning that I added two stars to my rising sun tattoo. While I held Mason today, and the sky changed from night to early morning, we talked about the stars and the people we trusted with our life story; because that is what we are; a living, breathing story, a living and breathing moment. We all are.
And what we accomplish or choose to take and give as learning is the story of us, and possibly something we can share with others….mistakes, corrections, heartache, triumph, regrets, joys and leaping epiphanies. While we admired the stars and compared the sky to those jaw breakers that melt one row of color into the next…..yellow-pink-Robyn’s egg diving into deeper blues until it accepted the blue black of the turning night..Mason said to me, and the profoundness of this statement pushed my heart and brought tears, Mason said, as he looked at the brilliant sky, “you can trust the morning stars.”
I knew he was talking about metaphysical stars and the stars that were he and Hailey. What he logically wouldn’t connect with, was Roger Knox. I hope Roger knows that his fair treatment of me and my family has been profoundly acknowledged, and I have yet to even meet this man. To hear the words Morning Star as we gazed upon them, made me realize, I need to let Roger know, that no matter where our story goes, the consideration and honor of The Morning Star and the people who work there must be guided and inspired by persons of character and integrity. And we are grateful.
While I sat in the pit over that grinder of a trial, I saw Roger in the gallery, along with Jackie Sharkey, and I thought, ‘thank goodness..someone is paying attention’.
So, thank you Mr. Knox and to all the creative and logical forces at The Morning Star.
Thank you for being present and for remembering that we are more than this moment.
Deborah Ashton and her family,friends and supporters
Vernon
