Glass Slippers.

At the stroke of midnight, the spell will be broken. – Fairy Godmother

It is the eleventh hour on the eve of the ball and I am once again wishing that the fairy godmother that eludes us all will appear. Because the carriage looks like a pumpkin and the mice need a keeper. Because I feel less princess and more scullery maid. 

Because unless I add four inches to my less-than-lofty frame, the dress that magically appeared yesterday has the potential to send me careening into the emergency room. 

I need slippers. 4-inch-tall slippers.

I really could be better prepared, I suppose. After all … it happens every year.

It’s a wonderful event that celebrates so many lights that went out too early, not in somber reflection but with joy that fills the room with all of the hearts and souls they touched. And they are honored deeply, not simply in memory but in the hundreds of thousands of dollars in scholarships that propel children of first responders toward their futures and their dreams. Young faces full of promise flash across the screen alongside those gone in whose name they are being recognized, a tribute to the promise of the future and the legacy of the past. For those of us who remain, we stand quietly proud while the bagpipes wail and we remind ourselves again that this, too, is evidence that we have not failed the memory and we’ve found good in the bad.

And for just a few hours we float like princesses up the sweeping steps.

In 4-inch slippers.