Stargazing

In the back of George’s closet there is a box full of deep creases and bent edges. However, when one sees the box, it is obvious that it is a box full of happiness and love. The box sags, but despite its wear, the lid is free of dust.

It is George and his wife Meredith’s box of memories. Every year on their anniversary (56 years ago today) George and his wife would take out the box and reflect on the year they had. They would place mementos from their favorite memories of the year and tell each other the story behind it, even if the other had been there for the event. They would go outside after the sun had set, place down a large checkered picnic blanket, and place their knick-knacks in the box. Every year they added to the contents of the box, but they never took things out. Each memory was too precious to be thrown away, too cherished to be replaced by another. So, year after year the box’s content grew.

Tonight was their anniversary, and George swung the closet doors open. He bent down and retrieved the box from its home in the bottom corner. He looked out the window at the faint light that still shone. There was still about a half hour before the sun set, so George gently set the box on the bed and opened it. He smiled as he pulled out a yellowed piece of paper. Holding it up to the light, George smiled.

A map of the stars. Meredith and George had met in high school at an astronomy club meeting. 

...

“Alright my future astronomers!” exclaimed their club sponsor, “It’s a beautiful night for observing the universe. Everybody buddy up at a telescope” The wrinkles worn from years of laughter became more prominent around George’s eyes as he smiles at the memory. He had been such a shy boy in school, and was standing by himself at a telescope when a girl came up to him. “Can I share your telescope?” George looked up in astonishment to see that the girl was asking him. “S-s-sure” he stuttered. The pair stood there and took turns with the telescope. The girl, Meredith, rambled on, engaging in a one-sided conversation. Finally she said, “One day I’m going to travel to Hawaii. I read somewhere that Hawaii is supposed to be the best place in the world for looking at the stars. The real stars, I mean. Not the silly little bits of stars that we get here. I mean the real night sky full of stars and planets you can see so clearly you don’t even need a telescope.” In Meredith’s face George saw a look of wonder and amazement. In that moment, George felt a small tug in his chest. He smiled at her using the telescope far longer than her fair share. He liked Meredith’s passion for the world around her, just being near her light made him burn brighter as well. That night, George crept carefully up the stairs to his room after the meeting and put into his drawer a handout of the map of stars they had been observing that night.

...

George gently set the map aside, treating it as if a strong gust of air would be enough to reduce it to ash, and continued rummaging through the box. After picking up, admiring and setting aside several other meaningful treasures, a glimmer of light caught the corner of his eye. It was a cheap plastic ring, set with a fake diamond in the middle. Parts of the silver exterior of the band were chipped away, revealing splotches of the black interior. The ring itself might be worthless, but its significance in George and Meredith’s relationship was priceless.

After high school graduation, they went through a rough patch in their relationship. They dated all throughout highschool and planned to continue the long distance relationship in college. I was a difficult choice for Meredith. To help out her family and saves some money, she had chosen to attend the local community college, while George had chosen to go to the state school, which was five hours away from their hometown. Freshman year of college went by, and when summer came George and Meredith were still together, but an obvious shift in their relationship had occurred. It was as if someone had erected a glass barrier between them. They looked the same, talked the same, but they couldn’t seem to connect the same way. One summer night, the couple had decided to go to a carnival in the next town, both of them testing the waters to see if the spark was still there.

...

“George, I just don’t know if I can handle another year in a relationship where you are so far away.” Meredith said as they waited in line for the Ferris Wheel. “Plus, you know I’m planning to travel for a month next summer, so we won’t even get to be together then.” She looked up, the night sky drowned out by the lights of the fair. “I finally saved up enough for a ticket to Hawaii, see the stars like we always dreamed of.” She gave him a sideways glance, letting the silence hang between them. George looked down at his hands, extremely involved with cleaning a speck of dirt from under his finger nail. She sighed as they handed the man their ticket and boarded the Ferris Wheel. They spent the ride in silence, both of them miserable as the laughter of children and the sweet cinnamon aroma of churros wafted around them. When the Ferris Wheel ride was over, Meredith decided that she was going to break up with him, since he had barely said one word to her all night. They were making their way down the road, workers yelling at them from the game booths lining the sides of the road, when George spoke. “Hey, let’s play that game over there.” He pointed at a small booth, one of those bob for a duck games where, if you caught a rubber duck with a red dot on the bottom you got a prize. The game was meant for five year olds, but George insisted on playing. At 10 cents a play, he spent a whole dollar on the game until he finally pulled up a duck with a red underbelly. The man at the booth came over to them and congratulated George. 

“Pick a prize, any prize!” George immediately pointed to one of the tiny plastic rings that were sitting in a pile on the counter. The man handed it over to him, and George sharply turned towards Meredith. 

“Meredith,” he began. “I know we don’t see each other too much, but I promise ya that I still love you. I’m gonna save up for the rest of the school year... for Hawaii.” He then placed the cheap plastic ring on her finger. “And I promise you that I intend to marry you, Meredith Harding, if you’ll have me.” 

...

That had been the beginning. George kept his promise, and the next summer they spent three weeks in Hawaii, every night lying down on the beach to take in the majesty of the night sky. They saw the milky way, pinpointed the red spec of Jupiter, and just admired the billions of lights that they could never see back home. And Meredith did not take off the little plastic ring until three years later,when George proposed to her for real, and she replaced her plastic ring with one of real silver, set with a diamond.

George’s eyes glistened at the memory. He set the ring aside and continued looking through the box. A pink onesie from their first child, their dream of starting a family had come true. Their college degrees, framed and displayed proudly side by side for many years. After their summer in Hawaii, Meredith applied to the same school as George and while he pursued a degree in architecture, Meredith studied astronomy. She could continue to study her beloved stars, and now get paid to do it. 

Then, near the bottom of the box, there was the small smattering of paper cranes. 

Meredith had been sick for about three months, undergoing intense rounds of chemotherapy with no signs of improvement. The doctors were slowly starting to change their phrasing. “We expect this round to keep the cancerous cells at bay” became “We will have to keep monitoring their progress,” became “It might be time to start exploring other alternatives.” 

George was despondent. He was watching the love of his life waste away before his eyes, helpless to stop it. One day Meredith was sleeping, she was always sleeping nowadays, and George crept into the room. 

...

“How are you feeling, my love?” He perched on the edge of the bed. “Oh, you know, not too bad really. I’m feeling better every minute.” Her eyes still half lidded as the corners of her mouth tilted slightly upwards. She always said that. She never wanted George to know how bad the pain was. “Listen,” he began quietly. “I remember reading this book when I was a kid, it was called Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. In the book, Sadako is sick with atom bomb sickness, and her brother visits her in the hospital and tells her that if they make one thousand paper cranes they would be granted a wish, and they could wish Sadako to be well again.” 

George then reached his hand into his pocket and pulled out a square piece of paper. His hands began to work, folding, creasing, and unfolding the paper in intricate shapes until he held in his hand a tiny paper crane. “I thought we could do the same.” He held it out to his wife. Meredith’s hands cupped the tiny crane. She smiled and looked up, “teach me.” 

...

So Meredith and George began to make crane after crane. In each piece of paper they placed a little bit of their hope. They let it sit on the delicate wings of each crane as they hung it on the ceiling of their bedroom, just like Sadako.

In the end, they had only made it to crane 379. 

George set the delicate paper crane back in the box, gathered up his other treasures he had been handling, and took it outside. On the lawn of the house where he and Meredith had lived for thirty years, a giant blanket was sprawled, right next to a telescope. He set the box down gently and eased onto the ground next to it. He watched as one by one, the stars of the night began to show themselves after a long day of hiding. His Meredith had been gone for six years now, back to join the stars that she had loved so much, but George will always be here - stargazing.