A Story About Princess Leia
by Elizabeth Ditty
Tonight I read my son a story about Princess Leia.
I did not cry.
(Not really.)
My voice made its way around the lump in my throat
To tell my son
How to be brave
despite dismal odds
(I’ll never tell him the odds)
How to stand against evil
because you know who you are
(I’ll tell him where he comes from and believe it’s enough)
How to defiantly hold onto hope
And find it anew when you have to
(I’ll show him where to find it: in friends, in nature, in the unexpected).
Luke gets the glory,
And sure, he deserves some of it.
But Leia
Princess
Sister
Lover
Mother
General
Never stopped
Never stopped believing
Not even when all was lost
Because she must have known
That all is never lost
Not even when you’re drowning in moonlight
Strangled by your own bra
You can learn to breathe stardust
And travel beyond what you know
What anyone knows.
So now we study the map she left us
The holograms to guide us
Through words and moving images
To find the force already within us.
It’s a five-minute story,
And my son is yawning by the end of it.
The rebellion can wait until morning, I suppose.
I close the book and tuck him in.
After all, the rebellion has already begun.
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