Reliving

Above me is the entire galaxy. It is dark blue and black, except in my peripheral vision, where it is a shade of blue that has no name. This blue fabric of the galaxy is speckled with tears and holes revealing the glowing light of another universe.

***

Stars are born within clouds of dust and scattered through most galaxies. They are celestial bodies made of plasma, held together by their own gravity.

I have always loved stars.

***

           I am three years old and my father wants to take me to the beach. “To see the stars,” he tells my mother, his lips close to her ear.

            This is my earliest memory, so her face is fuzzy, and I cannot remember what she says.

My father takes my hand and we walk outside. It is summer and the grass is sticky, tall enough to tickle my thighs. Cicadas are humming, but I don’t yet know what cicadas are.

When we have to cross the street, my father swings me into his arms, lifts me up so my soles don’t touch the gravel or rusty nails sticking out of the boardwalk.

He sets me down when we reach the sand and tells me to look up, because above us is something bigger and more magical than anything else he’s ever seen or will see.

I don’t answer. I am enthralled.

We lay down, directly on the sand, and I see my first shooting star.

My father tells me that when he was young, just a little older than me, he wanted to study stars for the rest of his life.

He tells me that the first book he read was about stars.

He tells me that even when he’s not there to take me, he hopes I’ll love the stars as much as he does, and I’ll go on my own.

He tells me that he didn’t end up studying stars for the rest of his life, he didn’t study much of anything, and this is one of his biggest regrets.

He tells me that he hopes I’ll never have any regrets, even when I’m as old as he is.

This is my only memory of my father, but when I see stars, I see him, too.

***

           I am seventeen and I am in love. It is cold, but he is warm, holding my hand in his.

His name is Michael. We met at church late last year, and even though his skin was bumpy and his teeth were cooked, I liked his eyes, so I smiled when he said hi. He is my first boyfriend.

           Now we are on our backs in my lawn, a picnic blanket beneath us and my mother gone for the night.

           It was my idea to stay outside and stargaze. I had read about it in a magazine, number three on a list of 100 romantic date ideas. I didn’t care that it was the middle of December, so he didn’t either.

           I point out the constellations, memorized for this exact moment. When I’m done, we lay in silence. He squeezes my hand, and I hope he’s going to kiss me. I have never been kissed before, but I have read about it in the magazines, and I wonder if it will be as magical as they say.

           He moves closer and presses his forearm to mine, turning his head. I can smell his breath when he speaks – fruity, slightly sour. He doesn’t kiss me.

           “I love you,” he says, and though I’ve heard those words countless times since, it has never sounded quite the same. 

***

           I am thirty-one and I gave birth to my baby eight days ago. Tonight is my first night out of the hospital, but he is still there. He will be there at least five more weeks. I don’t know what he looks like or feels like in my arms, because he was barely breathing when he was born.

The doctors say it’s a miracle he’s even alive. They say they have never seen a baby with skin so thin.

           My husband wanted to come with me tonight, but I wouldn’t let him. Tonight, I want to be alone. I hope he doesn’t take it personally.

           We haven’t yet decided on a name, because we thought we had three more months to choose. I want to name him after a galaxy or a star or a planet – something heavenly – but my husband does not like the idea.

           We disagree on many things, and we are not the best at compromise. But we have promised to do better, because we love each other, and now we have a baby. I pray that we will be good parents, that we will be able to hold it together. I am not ready for a baby.

           Above, the stars are so bright and twinkling I feel like they are listening to my thoughts, laughing merrily. I wish you were here, I think.

           I’m here.

***

           I am fifty-seven and it is the night before my mother’s funeral. I am in my childhood yard, lying on a picnic blanket, same as when I was seventeen.

She had been in poor health for many years, the cigarettes and candy finally catching up. I told her it was a fatal combination, but she said she didn’t care, her time was coming anyway. So the heart attack did not come as a complete surprise.

But still. I feel a deep, inescapable sadness. Not a sharp, painful, weak-in-the-knees sadness, the kind I felt when my husband told me he no longer loved me.

This is a slow sadness, a sadness that grows with time and thought, building like layers of sediment, gradually increasing in pressure.

This sadness never really goes away, but it also doesn’t take you by surprise, reminding you again and again of what you’ve lost.

We never bonded the way some parents and children do. She was my mother and I was her daughter, but we loved each other because our shared blood obligated it. Monthly phone calls were sufficient, and she saw the grandchildren for big holidays. But we led our own lives, connected by familial duty, eighteen years together, and, perhaps most importantly, the memory of my father.

My sadness feels overwhelming.

***

           Above me is the entire galaxy. I know this is one of the last times I will see it from this vantage point – below, looking up. But I can’t bring myself to mind, at least not right now. Not when this feels so familiar, so comfortable.

When I look up, I am not here; I am not of this moment. When I look up, I don’t just see stars, I see the past, too.

When I look up, I remember every other time I saw this same nightscape, and I remember all the memories and feelings and past versions of myself they are attached to.

When I look up and see stars, I relive my life, beginning to end.

  ***

I have always loved stars.