The Little Bumblebee
The community room buzzed with life—paper bats, orange streamers, kids running wild on sugar and joy. For the first time since the sirens, I felt something warm spark beneath the grief.
I was about to slip out when a small voice called, “Miss Alison?”
A little girl stood there wearing Emily’s bumblebee costume—bent wing, bobbing antennae, the yellow I’d picked because bees were “the happiest color.”
“Miss Sarah said you brought costumes,” she said shyly.
“I did,” I managed. “Do you like yours?”
She threw her arms around me. “Thank you! I always wanted to be a bumblebee!”
Then, quieter: “My mom left me here a long time ago. But you’re nice.”
A pause. Then the softest question: “Maybe… you could be my mom?”
It was the heaviest thing I’d ever held. “Would you like that?” I asked.
She smiled, gap-toothed and radiant. “You’re just right,” she said. “You can think about it. I’m Mia, in case you want to know.”
That night, I didn’t sleep. Loving again felt like walking back into a fire. But by morning, I knew: I couldn’t say no to the spark that had found me.
At the shelter, I told Sarah, “I want to ask about adoption—the little bee.”
Her eyes softened. “She hasn’t stopped talking about you.”
Then came the forms, interviews, home visits. “She needs consistency,” a social worker said. “Can you provide that?”
“Yes,” I answered, certain for the first time in years.
Six weeks later, I was approved. When I walked into the shelter, Mia ran straight into my arms. “You came back!”
“I did,” I said. “If you’ll have me, I’ll keep coming back.”
She grinned. “Are you really gonna be my mom?”
“If you want me,” I said. Tears. Laughter. “Very much.”
Now, two years later, Mia is eight and calls herself a “bee doctor.” She draws bees on every surface and leaves glitter on the kitchen table. Our mornings are loud again—music, laughter, spilled cereal.
Grief hasn’t gone; it just learned to share the room. But I’ve learned this:
A flyer on a rainy night, a costume, and one brave little bumblebee can lead you home again.