Home Planet: Pinwheels an enlightening experience

I saw the first flash out of the corner of my eye. It streaked across the steering wheel then raced along the seat beside me and was gone. The second made me turn and look. That’s when I really focused on the pinwheels, the garden of pinwheels planted along the sidewalk outside Sacred Heart Hospital. A scrap of wind had pushed past the building and set one or two spinning and they’d caught the weak, watery sunlight.

I’d noticed them before, peripherally, but I hadn’t really slowed down long enough to focus on them. But waiting in rush-hour traffic for the signal to change, drawn by a spark of light, I looked – really looked – at the forest of pinwheels, so bright against a gray landscape that gave no clue that spring had begun. The sign said that 2,722 pinwheels had been placed – one for each baby born at the hospital that year. They had been planted by volunteers to remind us to celebrate each birth. The underlying message was that they were also there to remind us of our responsibility in the protection and nurturing of every child born everywhere.

It is Child Abuse Prevention Month. Spokane is awash in brightly colored pinwheels. They are the centerpieces at luncheons, propped up on cluttered desks in offices, printed on newspaper pages, staked in lawns. They are a symbol of a community that has had enough. A community that has come together to make the system work for every child. A community that is looking ahead.

It’s a fitting symbol. A simple mechanism needing only the power of the air around us to do its work, but a powerful machine that carries a complex and crucial message. Take a minute, the pinwheel reminds us. Think about a child. Think about all children. Think about those who have a need. Those who have what they need. And those who never had a chance.

Still waiting for a green light, still gazing at the pinwheels, I was surprised by a gust of wind that shook my car. It flew low, brushing the tops of the pinwheels and set them all – nearly 3,000 of them, spinning wildly. And at exactly that moment, for what felt like the first time all day, the sky opened and the sun poured through the break in the clouds. Each folded blade, whirling around and around, took hold of that light and expanded and multiplied it until shards danced around the interior of my car, and in the cars around me, and in the windows of the homes and buildings nearby. It pierced the dreariness of the day.

I glanced around quickly to see if I was the only one who had noticed. I wasn’t. The man behind the wheel in the car next to me was staring out the passenger window. A woman, huddled in her thin spring coat, waiting at the corner to cross the street, had turned to watch.

Traffic began to move and I drove away. Babies were on my mind. Not just the 2,722 born at Sacred Heart. But the thousands born at the other hospitals across the city each year.

That’s how big things get done one small step at a time. We stop for just a minute, for just long enough for the message to sink in.

And that’s when we see the light.