The Power of Connections

Sometimes the smallest things can make the biggest difference. For me, it's bubble wrap.

Bubble wrap, with its little plastic air compartments that when you pop them makes that unique sound; like you are under water and someone is blowing in your ear. It protects things that are fragile or special to you. It brings fun things in the mail. It gives hours and hours of enjoyment to people of all ages – small children crawling around on the floor; bored, middle-aged men who are looking for something to do; or even a paraplegic woman who would delight her daughter by popping all the bubbles at once with the wheels of her chair.

The latter is my mother. We used to love getting packages in the mail. You know the saying, “Give a kid an expensive toy and they will play with the box?" Mom and would ditch the box and play with the bubble wrap.

I remember one time vividly. I was about seven, and we had just received a package of something from the UPS guy. Eagerly I waited, bouncing with energy, as my dad fumbled with the scissors, trying to cut the tape that was holding the box together. The top opened!... and I sighed in disappointment. It was the wimpy bubble wrap, with the very small bubbles that you could only pop if you tried really hard. We needed the huge two inch bubbles that you could sit on and they would feel like they were exploding under your butt.

I watched, dismayed, as Dad pulled out the new computer. Who cared about the computer? All I cared about was the bubble wrap! Dad dug deeper into the packaging, and found some at last! I pulled out the sheet and gazed at it in wonder as I carefully lay it on the kitchen floor. Looking up at my mom for permission, I smiled when she nodded at me. As was tradition, I popped the first bubble. Then, grinning, she wheeled over to me.

Suddenly she jerked the wheels forward, then quickly back, propelling herself into a pop-a-wheelie. Everything seemed to go in slow motion as her chair's front wheels fell towards the ground. They hit -- shattering the thin plastic coating the air that seemed almost desperate for escape. It was wonderful. . . amazing. . . spectacular. Bubbles cracked and popped and exploded all around me as I watched, gazing up at my mother with admiration.

Now, as I look back almost two years after her death, I realize just how much she meant to me. That one moment as I sat on the floor, surrounded by bubble wrap, has frozen her smiling face in my mind, preserving her in my memories forever.

I believe in the power that simple objects, like bubble wrap, have to bring us closer together.

Written, with love, for Yvonne M. Hiltz.
Becca Hiltz
April 2008