I’m Cecelia, a single mom to my ten-year-old daughter, Lily, and we love our small home and the cozy garden we’ve nurtured together. One of our favorite touches was a string of soft solar lights that Lily called “fairy lights” a project we completed together last spring. Every evening, we’d sit in our glowing little garden and share stories and dreams. But when our new neighbor, Meredith, moved in, the peace didn’t last long. She claimed our garden lights were “blinding” her and demanded we take them down or she’d get the authorities involved.

Despite the lights being dim and automatically shutting off by midnight, Meredith kept showing up to complain. Wanting to avoid conflict, especially for Lily’s sake, I reluctantly took the lights down. That night, Lily was heartbroken, asking why someone would care so much about something so harmless. I reassured her we’d find even better lights someday. But fate or karma had other plans. The very next morning, Meredith pounded on my door, disheveled and desperate, begging me to put the lights back.

Turns out, without the gentle glow of our garden lights, raccoons from the nearby woods invaded Meredith’s expensive, meticulously landscaped yard. They trampled her roses, dug through her mulch, and left behind a chaotic mess. She watched it all from her window, too scared to go outside. When she pleaded with me to restore the lights and help her clean up, I politely declined, reminding her she got exactly what she asked for. My patience had run out, and her entitled tone didn’t help her case.

In the weeks that followed, Meredith quietly worked to salvage her garden while Lily and I reinstalled our beloved solar lights this time with a few extra “stars” for good measure. That experience taught me something valuable: standing up for the simple joys in life matters. And sometimes, karma really is just a well-timed flicker of fairy light in the night.