The Sure Thing

When I was a little girl, the Fourth of July was my favorite holiday.

Not Christmas.

The Fourth.

I know that sounds backwards.

But Christmas wasn’t a holiday I could count on. No presents under the tree, because there wasn’t a tree. No Santa coming down the chimney. What chimney?

My sisters and I learned early not to wait for things that weren’t coming.

But the Fourth of July was a sure thing.

Every year we’d find the best view we could. The roof of the brick building, the fire escape, or the warm hood of somebody’s parked car, shoulder to shoulder, necks craned back, waiting.

Then… BOOM!

The sky split open. Red, white, and blue—smoke drifting past the streetlight. The whole block hollering at every burst.

For a few minutes, the broken buildings, the sirens, the worry, all of it disappeared under that light.

If you’d asked me then what Independence Day meant, I would’ve smiled and said, “Fireworks.”

It took me years to learn the brightest thing I ever found wasn’t in the sky.

It was words.

Some of you may not know this. I grew up reading at a third-grade level. I didn’t learn to read until I was a grown woman, raising two boys on my own, working three jobs.

I never imagined words could change my life.

They changed it anyway.

Those words became a book. That book became a screenplay. One day it will be a film.

But more than any of that, those words reached a stranger and made them feel less alone.

That’s what a story does.

Some years back, my son asked me, “Mom, what does Independence Day mean?”

I told him it’s more than fireworks. It’s the freedom to become who you were made to be, and to tell that story. And the grace to sit still when somebody else’s story doesn’t sound anything like yours.

Because everybody’s carrying one—different beginnings, scars, dreams.

But underneath it, we’re all reaching for the same thing. To be seen, heard and loved.

So long after the smoke clears and the last spark burns out, let the words we leave behind keep doing what fireworks can’t… lighting something up in somebody’s life.

Let’s leave words that build instead of break. Words that reach across what separates us and tell people they belong.

The brightest thing I ever found wasn’t in the sky.

It was the power of words.

And I’ve come to believe Independence Day isn’t only a day we celebrate.

It’s a way we live. Every single day.