If You Can't Find the Answer Here, Look to the Stars

If You Can’t Find the Answer Here, Look to the Stars

By Heather Ann Martinez

The evening sunk in. I was looking at the stars. My dad always said, “If you can’t find the answer here, look to the stars.” Dad was always convinced that some of the world’s toughest questions could be answered by looking at the Little Dipper. He always reminded us that we humans are part of a much greater cosmos. He would always look at our bright sun in the sky. He was humbled by what God created in the vast cosmos and was grateful to have a part on the universe’s stage.

While my generation grew more competitive with technology and became obsessed with watching the love lives of singles on television, dad’s generation stopped to smell the flowers. I didn’t find the answers to the tough questions in the stars as dad did, but I also wasn’t asking the right questions. My life was about getting ahead even with dips in the economy and threats of financial hardships looming in the distance. My generation is always saturated with the bleakness of what will happen tomorrow that we forget to truly live out today. My generation always asks questions like these: Do you always brace for impact? Do you circle the wagons? Or do you buy the shoes? Do you even think about going on a vacation to some tropical island? Do we allow ourselves to have fun? Can we leave the umbrella behind and jump in the puddles?

Dad would say I was looking behind Mars for the answers. He would say I was taking too many risks. I took out a lot of student loans to obtain a degree that became obsolete. I took a chance on love and ended up losing in the gamble. I managed to get ahead at work but lost sight of the things that were most important. Dad would send me a plane ticket to come home for the holidays. Mom would entice me with promising to cook my childhood favorites, but I didn’t go home. I chased after dreams like I chased after fireflies with my net in the backyard growing up. My brothers and sisters and I ran around the old house screaming with our nets, barefoot in all directions. We spent our hot summer nights collecting these tiny life forms and giving them new homes in our mason jars that we lined across our front porch. Mom gave them names and buried them when their lights burned out.

Our lives were so much easier when we were children. We weren’t always reminded that we were ash and dust. Working to stay alive alongside hundreds of others reminded you often you could be replaced in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, nothing prepares you for the phone call you forget may come. No one warns you that your days are numbered even more than you think. You can live in a cesspool of regret and salt your wounds with all the I wish I had done... all you want. Or you can accept that phone call. You can accept the fact that the music has stopped. The fat lady closed her show and you were not there for the last act. A brother whom you had spent little time with passed away. He had been away fighting in a war that never made sense and now he was gone.

This time, Dad did not send a plane ticket. Dad did not call to tell me to come home. Dad came and took me home.

“Dad...” I started making some sort of small talk and then stopped. We were bouncing along the expressway in his very old pick up truck. I could feel every bump and groove for what felt like an eternity of miles. Dad kept his eyes on the road and his hands firmly planted on the steering wheel. I could feel his disappointment with me for moving so far away, for not coming home more often. But that was how I thought you were supposed to play the game of life.

It wasn’t as though my brother had been waiting for me to come back. He was off fighting in a war in some foreign country. It wasn’t as if he had tried contacting me either. We grew up. We moved away from home and led our lives with whatever skills or knowledge we could pick up along the way. What answers dad found in the stars none of us kids ever really cared to see. Our parents were simple. They settled in a rural part of Kansas and raised their family. Dad had been in the military. Mom had worked for the post office. She saw stamps from all over the world come through her workplace but never once visited Morocco or Japan. She said all of her blessings weren’t around the world. All of her blessings were around her dining room table. Even though we were loud, rude and somewhat untamable, Mom would say her children were more important than anything else in life. Dad was a close second, but he felt us nine kids were his priority too. Mom said that she and dad didn’t need to make a lot of money or climb the corporate ladder to be happy. Even though it wasn’t easy for them to look after nine children, they thanked God for every scraped knee they were asked to look at. They were often asked to make every hurt better.

This drive home I knew dad could not make better. Although we seemed to be shouting at each other in the silence, we both knew there was nothing we could do that could change what we were going home to. I don’t know how many times I told my other brothers and sisters I loved them in the days and weeks that followed. My brother’s funeral was a fierce reminder that life was a lot shorter than we thought it was going to be. We stopped making excuses for never calling or coming home for the holidays.  Eventually, I moved back to that old house. I took care of my parents.

I hung out with my brothers and sisters. The answers finally came. The evening sunk in. I was looking at the stars.