We escaped the cold for two weeks on a trip to California,
visiting good friends up and down the coast. That was an expensive but
otherwise really good idea. While we were waiting for the ferry to Tom Sawyer’s
island at Disneyland, my cell phone rang with a call from the superintendent.
“It’s a snow day, kids!” I proclaimed, and they grinned over their churros.
Earlier in the month, Zora announced that she wanted to
write a letter to Darth Vader to see if he wanted a brother (hers). I thought
she was just looking for an opportunity to get rid of her sibling, but on
further questioning found out that she just felt Darth needed “some family on
his team.” (The appearance of Luke in his life is, in fact, what did eventually
inspire him to overthrow the Emperor). Having seen Episode 5 but not yet
Episode 6, Zora also considered that Darth Vader was pretty much the most
powerful person in the universe and that her brother would be safer off under
his wing. I thought this was a passing obsession until she came home with a
letter that a teacher had helped her write. It said, “Dear Darth Vader, do you
want a brother?” A flurry of Facebook postings later, Carmen volunteered for
the weighty responsibility of receiving and responding to this missive. I
begged her to print her reply in “Star Wars” font because she is in our living
will and might adopt the kids if we die young; I wouldn’t want them to
recognize her handwriting and think they had been adopted by Darth.
At Disneyland’s “Jedi Training Academy” show, Darth Vader
and his troopers rose up from a platform that appeared out of the ground and
challenged each of the Padawans (kids selected from the audience) to a
duel. Zora was thrilled. After a day of
rides, shows and ice cream, Zora reflected that the best part of her day was
seeing Darth Vader. “I guess he’s on vacation at Disneyland, just like us. I
want to meet him, mommy,” she confessed. “But I don’t want to fight him. I just
want to give him a hug.” I tried to picture Zora dressed as a Padawan, dropping
her sword on stage and hugging Darth’s leg. “Mommy,” she added more quietly, “I
have dreams about Darth Vader. I want to climb on him.” Uh oh. It suddenly
dawned on me why she had been so eager from the start to go on “Star Tours.”
Here it was Valentine’s Day, and my sweet little five-year-old had a crush of
empiric proportions on the dark lord.
Once we returned home, we found the letter that Zora had
been waiting for. She carefully opened the elegant black envelope and I read it
to her. As we composed her reply, it came up that Darth Vader dies in Episode
6. “I’m sorry, honey,” I explained, “people who do so much evil usually don’t
have happy endings.” She grabbed Vader’s letter, ran to her room, and sobbed on
the bed inconsolably. “Leave me alone!” she cried, as devastated as any
heartbroken teenager. Finally, she was willing to let me comfort her and to
explain that Vader is an “epic” character that lives on in the Star Wars movies
and everyone’s hearts. Her mind spun as she tried to reconcile his movie death
with the fact that she had just received his letter and seen him at Disneyland.
“I guess I can’t go into the movie to be with him,” she concluded, and put her
chin up. Then she added, in confidence,
“Mom, I don’t know why I like him so much. I just do.”
Two parent-teacher meetings later Zora seems to be doing
just fine, though Mom may still need more counseling.
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