Winding down

About 10 years ago Sprock bought a “Wizard of Oz” music box. Now she has a small collection of Oz memorabilia in a glass case. She gets them as gifts, finds them on sale.

It’s her favorite story. Growing up she never missed the annual airing of the 1939 film starring Judy Garland as Dorothy. “I remember watching it on one of those big wooden TVs,” Sprock said. “It always stuck with me.”

The ringtone on her phone plays “Ding-Dong! The Witch is Dead.” The license plate cover on the back of her van says, “Don’t make me send out the flying monkeys.”

She plays the movie several times a year at home. “It’s so magical to me.”

She has thought about her children as characters she meets in the Land of Oz, each needing something only a powerful wizard could grant. Summoning the courage to go on.

“Deep inside all you ever truly want is for your children to be like everybody else’s child,” Sprock said. “But when you’re the only person they come to because you’re the one who understands them, that’s not something I could give up just so that they would be like everybody else.

“I would love to hear a ‘mom’ from Kylynn or from Kameryn, just one time hear the word ‘mom.’ But if that meant giving up their sweetness or their smile, or not being able to hug them, I wouldn’t trade one thing for another.”

There is no Emerald City, no land heard of once in a lullaby. There’s only the yellow brick road.

“I’m going to keep moving forward because there’s nothing behind me,” she said. “It’s all in front of me, that’s the direction I need to go. That’s where the good stuff’s at.”