The Force Runs Strong In My Family

I may actually be the only one to blame. I have a habit of blurting things out before fully considering their consequences. Like when I happened to see online that Star Wars Celebration III tickets had just been released for a convention about 4 hours from our home.

"Look!" I unthinkingly called to my Nabooian son,"There's going to be a Star Wars convention nearby."

I cannot describe how quickly my husband's head turned, with his "What are you doing? What are you doing?" expression of disbelief. Truly, both my boys are Star Wars fans, it's just that my husband 1. hates crowds and 2. doesn't like to consider himself a "Star Wars fan".

Still, we went to the Star Wars Celebration III convention. My son, who had received a Darth Vader voice-changer for his birthday, had only one costume in mind. And, be assured, he would be the only costumed family member. He had his black pants, black turtleneck, black boots, black voice-changer helmet, and needed me to do just one thing: sew a black cape. I'm useless when it comes to sewing machines, but had managed to hand-sew the collar of the cape, so I thought we were good to go. It was pointed out there was no bottom hem to the fast-fraying cloth.

"Okay, don't worry about it! I know we'll be sitting in long lines. I've got a spool of black thread in my backpack and I'll hem it during our waits."

Honestly, I was surprised at how intelligent and interesting so many of our fellow attendees were. There was an editor of a Mexican newspaper covering the event, German engineers, French-Canadian film students. The homeschool mother in me told my son to start listing all the countries of people we met and he could map it when we got home. Hemming the Vader cape kept getting delayed.

On the night before the last day of the convention, I promised I'd sew the hem in the hotel room. I laid the cape out, opened my backpack and took out the spool, empty aside from a few inches that had trailed outside of its zippered compartment. I had a very bad feeling about this.

My son whispered Vader-ishly, "Where's the thread?"

"Apparently, it unspooled all over the convention center." I had to make it right. "Hang on. I'll bet the hotel giftshop sells thread."

I hurried down and raced to the giftshop before it closed. In front of me was a short, silver-haired man. He glanced over his shoulder at me, then turned and smiled charmingly. Had my boys not made me watch every single "making of..." feature of every Star Wars dvd, I wouldn't have known this was the Star Wars swordmaster, Nick Gillard.

But, to be certain, "I'm sorry, are you Nick Gillard?"

"Yes, yes, I am."

I had to think quickly and pulled out a pen and wrinkled piece of paper. "Would you mind very much signing something for my son? "

"Not at all."

He scribbled something hurriedly before it was his turn in line.

I unfolded the paper and read what Nick Gillard had written. My smile disappeared. "Fear is the path to the dark side..."

OK, at the time, I wasn't versed enough in Star Wars trivia to know this was a Yoda quote. I basically thought Nick Gillard had just written an obnoxiously dark and pessimistic message to my young son. I actually was going to confront him, but he had already gone. I mean, what was wrong with this guy?

When I got back to the hotel room, I told my boys about the Nick Gillard meeting and reluctantly, uncertainly, gave the paper to my son. His face lit up.

"It's a Yoda quote!"

I can't say how relieved I was that I hadn't had the chance to blurt anything out to Nick Gillard. He surely would have found my lack of faith disturbing. The Force had been with me.