There's No Crying on the Millennium Falcon

A story for Star Wars Day

We stood in the shadow of the Millennium Falcon. My girls were excited—though they weren’t entirely clear on why.

“We’re going to ride that?” my seven-year-old asked, jumping, pointing, grinning, eyes wide.

“Uh—yeah,” I said. From a certain of view. “That ship is called the Millennium Falcon. We’re going to fly it on a special mission. And we each get a job.”

“You mean I get to drive?” The girls squealed.

We were in line for the Smugglers Run ride at Hollywood Studios in Disney World: me, the aforementioned seven-year-old, my four-year-old and my dad.

The old man and I had ridden Smugglers Run on our last family foray into Disney World—we’d loved it, though we were particularly inept gunners and the whole thing nearly cost us our dinner reservations. But this time—this time—my girls were old enough to join us.

My dad had introduced me to Star Wars. I had introduced my girls to Star Wars. And now the four of us were about to clamor insight that iconic hunk of junk and steal some coaxium from the First Order.

Wizard.

We moved through the line quickly—the wonders of the Lightning Lane. We barely even had time to take in all the little details of Ohnaka Transport Solutions. Did I want to offer the entirety of Hondo Ohnaka’s backstory to my girls? Of course I did! I’m no derelict Star Wars dad! There just wasn’t enough time!

But as we drew closer and closer to the cockpit, my youngest began to squirm.

“Is this scary?” she asked.

“No, no,” I said—though, after offering that same answer for the third time, I began to second guess myself. Is it scary? She is four…

We all squeezed around the hologame table—much to the chagrin of the Disney staff—and snapped a few photos.

We were assigned our positions: the girls were the pilots (hooray!); my dad and I the gunners.

“I think it’s going to be scary…” The four-year-old again.

“Not scary at all!” I insisted, begging the universe not to add any rando riders to our motley crew. “Fun! It’s going to be fun! Like a game!”

Anyway. We crammed into the cockpit—just the four of us, thank God—and my youngest basically started crying immediately. Like, apocalyptic tears. Whole body shakes. The works.

And yeah—I definitely forgot how intense that ride is. And that you can’t unbuckle in the middle to console your wailing pilot because the whole thing is moving. Just rumbling and rolling. You know: like you’re on a spaceship that’s going through one long extended crash sequence because one of your two pilots is crying instead of trying to steal coaxium from the First Order.

“It’s okay,” I yelled over Hondo Ohnaka’s constant instruction to pull up. I awkwardly grabbed my daughter’s shoulder. “You’re okay.”

“You have to hit that button!” my eldest yelled. She never took her eyes off the prize: pulling levers, hitting buttons, steering us to, if not glory, at least not utter destruction. She was into it.

My youngest, much to her credit, kept hitting the right buttons. Through sobs and shakes and utter fear, she did her best to keep the Falcon in the proverbial air. I guess that’s all you can hope for.

“I didn’t like that,” she said, still wailing, when we finally ‘landed.’ “It was scary.”

“Yeah, guess so,” I said, trying to suppress my own giddy grin.

I carried that sobbing four-year-old all the way through the so-called Resistance tunnels (aka the exit) and into the gift shop and back into the Hollywood Studios glamor and glitz.

“I didn’t like that at all,” she told her mother.

My eldest, though: “I want to do that again. And can we build a lightsaber?”

You try to pass on the things that are important to you. You try to bring your loved ones into the story, give them an experience. You never know what’s going to stick.

But I’m persistent. I’ll try again. Because the stories that shape us, the stories we love—we pass them all. It’s just what we do. It’s part of being human.

Books & things!

• Nothing says “Happy Star Wars Day” then a copy of My Life with the Jedi: The Spirituality of Star Wars! You can grab your STEEPLY discounted copy here.

• This week, May 6th, will see the publication of TWO new books:

  • Finding Peace Here and Now: How Ignatian Spirituality Leads Us to Healing and Wholeness—Preorder now from the publisher and get a 40% of discount!

    

  • Our Mother Too: Mary Embraces the World— “This is the First Holy Communion gift you’ve been looking for!”