Little Red Flies

Early Years 2006 - 2009 - Many things have happened, little things, that after a while start to add up to something bigger. These are those little things.

When my boys were very young, I think my youngest was still in his crib, my oldest son, probably about 4 years old, would be afraid in his room at night. I would ask him what he was afraid of and he would always say "the red flies, mommy, please make the red flies go away". I would tell him that when we are tired our eyes sometimes play tricks on us. Sometimes when we have our eyes closed and then open them to a very small amount of light we "see" spots. I told him not to be afraid and then I would say a prayer over him to help protect him.

This went on for about a year or so. My youngest son graduated to a big bed and now their room was set up with a single bed on either side of their window with a dresser in between.

One night, I was going into their bedroom to check on them, like all moms do. As I approached their bedroom door I saw, floating above their dresser, a cluster of red lights. The best way I can describe them is that they looked like LED lights. There were about a dozen of them just floating above the dresser. I stood in the doorway for a while looking at them and trying to see/find a reasonable explanation for what might be causing these lights. Is there a book somewhere on the floor that has something shiny on it that might be reflecting, a light from a toy, something in the hallway... Then I noticed it wasn't reflected "on" anything at all, it was floating above. I closed my eyes and when I opened them again the lights were gone. I went in and said a blessing above the boys and asked God to protect them through the night.

The next morning is when I realized that what I saw were the red flies.

Several months later my boys wanted to rearrange their bedroom, moving all their furniture to a different location in the room. I reluctantly agreed, knowing that the way we currently had the room set up was the only way all of the furniture would fit into their tiny room. Humoring them, we ended up with the heads of each bed on opposite walls and the sides of the beds meeting in the middle. So you had to literally crawl over the beds to get to the dresser/window. I told them that this arrangement wouldn't work but that they could sleep with it like that for one night. They were extremely excited and ran off to get ready for bed.

After the nightly ritual of showers, snacks, teeth brushing and him-hawing, we all crawled over the beds and knelt to say our prayers. With hands folded and eyes closed, they started..."Our Father..." I opened my eyes to make sure they were being respectful, backs straight, hands folded, eyes closed, but when I did I saw, floating in front of their armoire, not more than the 3 feet in front of me, the red flies. A cluster of them just like before. Not reflected on the piece of furniture but floating. I gazed at them for a while and I looked out of the corner of my eye to see if either of my boys noticed them. Their eyes were still closed so I shut mine and when I opened them back up they were gone, just like before.