The First Fireworks

I still remember distinctly driving home right after the pandemic started and being very aware that there were no fireworks. Living near Walt Disney World in Orlando for over 25 years the nightly display became as normal and expected as the sunset, a constant you could set a watch by. I didn’t always see them, but I knew they were there. And then one day, they weren’t.

For me, the silent dark skies over Disney had become a personal representation of this entire pandemic. It had been as if, like me, the empty sky had been holding its breath those long 15 months. 

No light. No sound. No color. I had always felt that I wouldn’t be confident that we were returning to normal until fireworks adorned our skies again. It was my own intimate and silent marker. One I dared not speak aloud for what, to many (including my own household), may have sounded trivial amidst the chaos of unemployment and the collapse of the lives we once knew. But for me, the fireworks have always meant so much more than a nighttime finale, felt so much greater than a sparkling kiss goodnight.

Many evenings over many years past, I have stood in front of Cinderella’s Castle with its iconic glow against a waiting sky. But unlike most, I have done so in the role of a volunteer facilitator of a wish to a terminally ill parent often enjoying the magic of the fireworks with their children for the last time before their disease inevitably ran its course.

For me, the weight of that knowledge as each individual shell lifted itself gracefully to its destiny in the sky above us, brought with it a reverence, a burst of extreme joy tempered with the heart stilling contemplation of an unknown future. It was a time to briefly inhale cautious optimism as the heavens rained down upon us with light and sound and pixie dust; a mark in time as if a slow-motion flashbulb capturing a memory for a lifetime. Not once standing there in that moment was I unaware of that gravity, to myself and to those families gathering those precious mental snapshots close to their hearts.

Although things were, and still are, extremely uncertain for so many including myself, I broke down in tears when I found out that by a beautiful twist of fate, my previously furloughed entertainment cast member husband would be a part of the pyrotechnic crew loading and launching the Magic Kingdom fireworks display on the day that we ended the silence and the darkness of these long months, returning to our skies the much-anticipated sound and lights of celebration.

It was not the job he left over a year prior. But it was a job that seemed to me a beautiful and symbolic renewal. One that brought him back to his roots. It was poignant to me that his hands would be responsible for returning our community to one very small part of normal on that very special evening.

On that Tuesday night in late June, I was gratefully gifted with a ticket to attend the Magic Kingdom Cast Member “Homecoming Ever After” fireworks preview in place of my husband who was busy bringing the show to life backstage. I would be one of the first in my community to witness the return of fireworks to our skies, to witness some tiny incarnation of hope encapsulated in hundreds of shells blasting open above us.

I stood alone in the crowd, my gaze upward toward the empty silent sky still holding the breath of the last 15 months, reflecting on all we had lost and the uncertainty still to come. I, too, had lost my job and career of over 30 years and the road back for us is long and far from over but on that night, it felt that there was possibly some light at the end of the tunnel, at least for some, and eventually maybe for us as well. Standing there in that moment for me was like an anticipation of possibilities.

As my husband and the rest of the Magic Kingdom Pyrotechnic team prepared their final checks under the blank canvas of the dark midnight sky, an anxious audience composed of their own Disney family gathered in front of the castle awaiting the telltale sound of that first lucky shell to pierce the darkness and shower us with brilliant light, to paint the sky masterfully with the art of their craft. It was a fitting tribute that the cast members and their families, who have endured so much over this long terrible year, were finally reunited under a hopeful sky.

Then the 3 simple words, unknown to all of us watching, somewhere in the darkness behind the scenes, a call to unseen hands. “Go for Show”.

471. That is how many days had passed since an audience stood in front of Cinderella’s castle to watch fireworks. 471 days of loss, unemployment, fear, uncertainty. That is 15 long months of silence. 471 days of the unimaginable. To hear the crowd around me scream out when that first shell pierced the dark sky to ignite its painted canvas of light again reminded me that we do not walk this path alone. That collective cheer that rose up from the streets of Magic Kingdom was a shared joy, a gathered exhale, a release of 471 days to the night sky above us begging to be silent no more. It was history. It was OUR history unfolding before tear-filled eyes and grateful hearts and I was privileged to be witness to it.

That first magnificent shell and all that follow now in its wake, a beacon, not just to the hard-working cast members that create the magic in honor of the mighty legacy of Walt Disney but also to the determined and once-thriving people of Central Florida whose lives are still far from normal. It was, as every Disney pyrotechnic display I have been blessed to stand beneath over the years, a powerful and poignant moment, a moment of gravity as it unfolded onto the indelible pages of our history. Both for me, and for those standing with me under the vast expanse of a long-anticipated gloriously alight sky.

For almost 2 years now the world has lived the unthinkable, the unimaginable. I hope that each tiny moment like this one marks a small turning point toward healing and moving a tiny bit closer toward rebuilding in the wake of all that has been lost for so many of us. I believe someday soon we will rise, one hand to another, once again under the canopy of colors bursting through cloud to light our way to a better day.