Tired feet walked across the final row of vendors in the back of the packed Agri Center at the Erie County Fair. My weary hand clasped the handle of the red Radio Flyer covered wagon towing my daughter, Mabel. I passed through a crowd of people, and a family moved to my left.

“Sir! Sir!” I heard a faint voice say in the bustling group behind me. It took a few moments for me to register they were speaking to me. I turned to look, assuming Mabel had tossed one of her pink shoes or her green bag outside the wagon, but I couldn’t make out what was being said.

“Nick, she wants to know if ... ” my wife, Kelly was trying to explain. People swirled around us. Next to my wife, a girl of eight or nine years old held up a giant blue elephant with pink feet and starry-irised eyes. I assumed they thought we had dropped the prize.

“Does she want this?” asked the girl.

“She wants to give this to her,” said the girl’s mother.

“I’m tired of carrying it,” explained the little girl. She extended the animal toward our wagon.

“Are you sure?” Kelly asked. Another man heard the conversation and started to slow down and turn toward us.

“Yes,” said the girl as she relinquished the toy to my wife.

“Thank you,” Kelly took the oversized elephant in her hands. “Mabel, do you want this?” Under the wagon’s canopy, Mabel was playing with one of her pink shoes, content in her own little world.

“I have to see this,” said the man who had overheard the conversation. A large smile crossed his countenance.

“Mabel,” said Kelly, as she moved the blue elephant under the canopy’s hood. The pink shoes fell from tiny hands, and an wide smile crossed a tiny face as the stuffed animal was pulled to her polka-dotted shirt in a hug. The toy was pushed away briefly so she could admire its features, then pulled back again in another hug. Small noises of excitement filled the apartment of the small wagon.

“Mine are all grown,” said the listening man. He walked away with a cracking voice and watery eyes. The gift giver vanished in the crowd. Around the corner came my parents, and we relayed the astonishing events to them.

Over the past two years, days like this had been robbed from us “because of Covid.” “Because of Covid” had become a stigma in our lives, and it had taken these small acts of kindness from us. We lost the “good mornings” and the extended hand to hold a door at the grocery store. We lost the curious chats with passersby at the art festival, or the talk about sweet corn at the local farmers market. We also lost the twinkle of a smile so many strangers often give in passing. In essence, we had lost the magic of living.

Not every magical situation needs to end in a physical gift, however. Maybe we were lucky and it was just coincidence that we were given a bit of magic on that day. We can all recall the commercial jingle: “There’s magic at the Fair!” That was another thing that had been missing because, well, “because of Covid.”

Magic appears in numerous ways within our lives. Sometimes we see it, and sometimes it’s just out of view. That evening, however, magic appeared in the form of an elephant given with compassion by a kind young girl.

These events and situations, when they occur, truly remind us that life can still be wonderful and exciting.

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