Stargazer

Star (noun): a fixed luminous point in the night sky which is a large, remote incandescent body like the sun. I don’t understand why people are so fascinated by a small pinprick of light just barely visible in the night sky. Honestly, what’s so exciting about hot masses of gas that are lightyears away?

Yet I’m sitting here in a wide open field on a cold evening balled up atop a warm blue blanket looking up at the sky. I look next to me and see my best friend since elementary school, Kai, setting up a large telescope. He lifts a hand to adjust his beanie that has become a statement piece with his outfits recently. He wears one everyday with a collection containing a wide range of colors and styles. I catch a glimpse of sweat on his brow from the telescope set up. I had offered to lend a hand, but he refused and told me I could set up the blanket and snacks. That was about fifteen minutes ago, and he appears to be struggling.

“Are you sure you don’t need any help with that?”

“I’m sure.”

Kai’s phone begins to ring and he moves away a foot or two so he can answer it. Right as he moves away, I see the telescope start to tip over on the tripod. Kai doesn’t seem to notice as it begins to fall over on it’s side. I get onto one knee and reach my hand over just before the optical tube hits the grass. I let out a small grunt as I readjust into a position where I can hold the telescope with both hands. Kai hears me and immediately tells whoever is on the other line that he’ll call them back and rushes back over to me with a concerned look on his face.

“Danica! Oh crap, you good?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just get this thing off of me.”

“Oh, right!”

He gently lifts the telescope out of my hands and props it back up on its feet. I quickly dust off my hands and go back to sitting with my legs stretched out in front of me with my hands behind me for support. Kai then continues to fiddle with the telescope. Sick of sitting in silence, I start talking.

“Who was that?”

“Who was who?” Kai asked quizzically. I swear, he can be so clueless at times.

“On the phone. Who called you?”

“Oh, right. Just my mom.”

“I see.”

I’m not very surprised. Kai has been getting a lot of calls from his mom and dad recently. Almost every time we hang out, there’s a call from one of his parents. If anybody asks any further on what the call was about, he shrugs his shoulders and says, “Important news”, or “Family stuff”. Kai never lies, but it’s become very hard to believe him on this. Despite my worries, I don’t interrogate him about it. If he doesn’t want to say, it’s not my place to push him to do so. He’ll tell me when and if he’s ready.

“Are you almost done setting up the telescope? It’s been almost twenty minutes.”

“Yeah, I just need to adjust the lens focus.”

After a few more moments of turning and tweaking knobs, he comes over to me and offers a hand. I begrudgingly take it as he helps me to my feet. Behind his usual pep, Kai seems extremely tired, almost like he hasn’t slept in weeks. As he leads me over to the telescope I see him stumble a bit. I move to help him, but he brushes it off with a smile and ushers me to the telescope and I put my right eye to the eyepiece. The telescope is aimed at a random cluster of stars at a random point in the sky.

After a few moments, Kai breaks the silence. “So, what’d you think? Pretty cool, huh?

“Yup, those are stars alright!” I state backing away from the telescope.

“Really? You don’t see anything unique about it?”

“Not really. It just looks like a bunch of white specks.”

“Oh come on! Look again super closely.”

I open my mouth to protest, but his eyes beg me to try. I sigh heavily and put my eye back to the viewfinder. I stare at the stars again desperately searching for a familiar pattern or picture that I could use as a focal point to decipher the full picture, but after what felt like hours of staring, I finally gave up.

“I’m still not seeing anything.”

“That’s okay. Look at the three really bright stars that form a triangle. Do you see them?”

“Yeah, I see them.”

“Okay, now follow those stars down to the really faint star. Then connect them to the other three stars to form a trapezoid. Got it?”

“Oh, that’s the Big Dipper, right? Or is that one the Little Dipper?”

“That one is the Big Dipper. They look very identical, but their positioning is slightly different. Okay, now step back and look at the sky.”

I take one last look at the stars and their positioning before once again pulling away from the telescope and looking up at the night sky. I have to blink a few times before my eyes adjust, but suddenly the constellation is clear in the sky. I spot it instantly and point it out to Kai.

“There it is!”

I turn back to him and realize that he’s smiling at me. I smile back, but then I look at him closer. He turns away for a moment before returning to our conversation, but I could’ve sworn I saw a twinge of sadness in his eyes. I must be imagining things now.

“Congratulations! That’s the first time you’ve found the constellation all by yourself. I’m quite impressed. I must have taught you well.”

I push aside my thoughts and return his teasing. “Soon enough I’ll be better at this whole stargazing thing than you are!” That was a total lie. Kai had been studying the night sky for years. You point to a random point in the sky and he could tell you whether it’s a star or a planet and what constellation it belongs to. He was a genius, and my lack of profound interest in something as trivial as stars could never rival his passion for them.

Kai walked over to the blanket, took a seat, and ushered me to do the same. I walked over right next to him and grabbed a bag of marshmallows that he had brought.

“Marshmallow time?” I asked, shaking the bag in front of his face.

Knowing that I wouldn’t take no for an answer, he grabbed the bag from my hands and tore open the package. We sat in silence for a while, snacking on marshmallows and watching the stars, before Kai turned to me. His playful expression was replaced by a more sorrowful and pained look, yet he still kept a smile on. 

“I need to tell you something.”

I’m not completely sure, but I don’t think that anything good has followed a statement like that. It’s like saying, “We need to talk.” with no context or preface. Although every alarm in my body was blaring and telling me that something was seriously wrong, I maintained a cool composure.

“Yeah, what’s up?”

Kai took a deep breath and looked down at his shoes. He was obviously uncomfortable and nervous. I wanted to say something to let him know that it’s okay if he’s not ready, but before I could think of how to put him at ease, he spoke.

“I was recently diagnosed with Leukemia. I still don’t know a lot of the details, but I do know that I probably don’t have much time left. The calls I’ve been getting from my mom recently are about doctors appointments and medical information. I tried to tell you sooner but the timing never felt right. I’m so sorry.”

I sat in complete shock. Leukemia? Don’t have much time left? His words swam around in my head until they finally settled in. It all made sense. The calls, his absences and tardies, the fatigue, the beanies, his unusual behavior, all of it. 

“I understand if you need time to process, but I really had to tell you before-”

His voice cuts out and I see his eyes start to water. Not knowing what to say, I gently reach up and put my hand on his back. A tear rolls down his cheek and he sniffles before continuing.

“I had to tell you before you before you found out too late. I have maybe a month or two left. I’m so sorry.”

I don’t know what to say or how to say it. My childhood best friend was dying. 

“Why stargazing?” I asked him, tears flooding my eyesight.

“Huh?”

“Why stargazing? Why tell me here? Why now? When did you find out? Why is this happening? What are you going to do?” The questions all come flooding out of my mouth. Before I can get much farther, Kai pulls me into a tight hug. Tears stream down my face and onto his shoulder and his tears fall on mine.

“Stargazing has always been one of my favorite things. Just like humans, stars have life cycles. Some are shorter than others. When stars die, they become a nebula and all the energy that was contained in that star is released into space. Then they become white dwarfs, and then black dwarfs. They are no longer stars, but the energy they release is recycled to make millions of other stars. It’s a beautiful, never ending cycle. I am like a star and whatever I do now has an effect on the stars around me. If I can create a new star in somebody’s life after I’m gone then my purpose in life will be fulfilled.”

We sit on the blanket hugging for a while before breaking apart. Kai looks back at the sky and continues to talk.

“You know, I’ve always loved the name Danica. Do you know what it means?”

I shake my head. I’ve never really taken an interest in my name or its origin, so I never bothered to look it up or ask.

“Danica means morning star. Despite its definition, morning star often refers to the planet Venus or other planets seen in the eastern sky before or at sunrise. We know the planets are large and in some cases even bigger than Earth, yet to the naked eye they look small. Like little stars.”

Kai suddenly turns his head to look at me. His eyes are red from crying, but he has a small, genuine smile on his face.

“You are my little star, Danica.”

Two Years Later

“Oh come on! I know this is difficult to set up but geez!” After half an hour of wrestling with the telescope, I’m still at square one. I look at the instruction manual and check to make sure I’m building it correctly. I notice that the optical tube is upside down, hence why it won’t screw into the mount. I flip the tube and then continue setting it up.

After another thirty minutes of struggling, the telescope is finally set up. I stand back to look at my work and then take a seat on the blue blanket I laid out a couple feet away from the mount. Retrieving the bag of marshmallows from a bag in the corner of the blanket, I use them and make a mini constellation of the big dipper on the blanket. I look up at the night sky and immediately find the same constellation in the sky. 

“Kai would’ve loved this.”

With that I pull a piece of paper out of my back pocket and start writing:

Dear Kai,

It’s been exactly two years since you told me you were sick, and just over one since you passed. It’s been very different without you around. Your family and mine miss you very much, but we know that you’re happier where you are. I’ve been using your telescope almost every week and it still hasn’t gotten any easier to set up. I move away for college tomorrow and I can’t bring the telescope with me, but I trust that it will be safe in the care of my little brother. He has taken up a great interest in astrology and is eager to start using it. He reminds me a lot of you.

There isn’t a day that goes by without missing you and I look forward to the day where we can be together again and dance among the same stars you taught me to love. Thank you for helping me love the night sky and myself.

Forever Your Little Star, 

Danica

I took a shovel and dug a small hole in the ground. I folded the paper with the note into an airplane and buried it in the dirt along with some stargazer lilies. I smiled and looked up at the sky. I could almost see him and his smile hiding among the stars.