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.