Catching Stars. A phrase that has stayed with me since my youth, burrowing deeper into my mind every time I would look up at the jewel-encrusted night sky.
Where I lived as a child, there was a hill with a mostly flattened top, perfect for blanket-tucked stories, mother’s smiles, and staring at stars.
Now, as an adult, the hill is home to memories. An earth-made mausoleum that holds star-dusted memories composed of hundreds of nights spent watching, waiting with held breath that a star might fall.
“Falling stars,” mother would say, “Are meant to be caught.”
I’d fall asleep, snuggled against her under the warm blanket, listening to her describe the process a star underwent just to fall from its perch. It was a complicated thing, and even to this day, I don’t understand it. I’m honestly not sure that she even did, but she excelled at telling stories to children who didn’t know better, and I was an avid listener.
Each morning after a night of star-gazing, she’d wake me with a gentle shake, and my eyes would marvel at the glittering grass all around us. Thousands of glimmering points were lit by the sun, and it didn’t matter how often I saw that view; my breath would catch all the same.
“Stars?” I’d ask, reaching for the closest blade of dew-dotted grass.
“No, they fell, and we didn’t catch them. Now they’re just water.” She’d speak slow and soft, pulling me into a tight hug, her smile as warm as the morning rays that would paint the hill.
I moved away years ago to a house surrounded by other homes, with no hills in sight. I couldn’t sit on the hill without thinking about her, without wishing I had been able to catch a star with her.
Now, I park along the dirt road, tuck the biggest blanket I own under my arm, and take my daughter’s hand as we step off the beaten path. It’s hard to look at my daughter and not see traces of my mother in her, especially when she smiles. But that’s why I think she might enjoy watching the stars, catching stars with me.
My daughter squeezes my hand as we climb the hill. As large as I remembered it being, it seems smaller now, less flat. Less comfortable.
“Wow,” she says, eyes as bright and beautiful as the stars she’s now staring at.
I tell her about all the times I’d come out here when I was younger than her and recount all the stories my mother shared with me. It hurts to remember, but my wife was right; it helps too. I don’t think I tell stories as well as she did, but I do my best, and my daughter listens for as long as she can, but sleep eventually takes her.
There are small moments in the world where we feel a person who has passed away. Some people see their loved ones in nature, others in numbers or specific words. I like to think that my mother is now a star and stares down at us, waiting to catch us in case we fall.
These thoughts make it impossible to sleep. Come morning, the surrounding grass is coated in dew drops, brilliantly catching the sun as it had always done when I was a child.
My daughter stirs, eyes blinking open.
“Papa?” she asks me, a frown on her face.
“Yes?”
“Are you crying?” She reaches with her tiny, delicate hand and brushes my cheek.
“No,” I whisper. “Stars fell, but you missed it while you were sleeping, and now it’s water. Just like out there.”
She stares at me, perhaps not as gullible a child as I was, but turns to look where I point, and her eyes sparkle as she notices the sea of grass shining around us.
“Wait,” she asks, turning back, eyes narrowing.
“What?”
“Does that mean you caught a star? Since it was on your face?”
I choke out a laugh, hoping my smile is even a fraction as warm as my mother’s had been. “It doesn’t count if you aren’t awake for it.” I squeeze my daughter close to me and together we stare over the hill.
“Well that doesn’t seem fair,” she whispers.
I squeeze her tighter. She’s right of course, it doesn’t seem fair at all.