We Are Made of Stars

Frozen rain falls in the park and the sidewalks are covered in snow. Gusts of icy wind blow over black and white Magpie feathers scattered all along the cold ground. Frost clings to a motionless merry-go-round and a deserted swing set. Someone’s handwritten letter has been crumpled up and tossed in the mud of a lifeless garden. Black ink smeared across soggy white paper.

My little nephew and I walk away from his schoolyard, moving through the gray, drizzly afternoon. His coat is zipped all the way to his chin and his shoelace is untied. I carry his backpack and he carries his handwriting worksheet filled with vocabulary words printed in his left-handed scrawl. At the bottom of the page he has written a single sentence: All day, I wait for the pretty rain.

In the car, he tells me a story as we drive home. Tires rolling slowly over slick pavement, traffic lights glowing through the haze of winter. My windshield wipers glide back and forth, sweeping raindrops and snowflakes from the glass. Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Hand by The Primitive Radio Gods drifts faintly through my car’s crackling speakers while my nephew tells me about his day. His voice is growing drowsy and gradually tapering away, fading behind the music and the white noise of traffic until he is completely silent. When I look at him in the rearview mirror, I see that he has fallen asleep.

I used to do the same thing during car rides when I was his age, especially in the winter. Buckled up in the backseat, I would rest my head against the cold glass streaked with rain water and listen to the low drone of the engine while our tires splashed through stray puddles of water pooling all along the streets. My eyes following snowflakes fluttering in the headlights of passing traffic; tiny circles of light drifting through the fog. Counting the endless white dashes lining the road. Counting blackbirds perched on highway billboards advertising businesses that don’t exist anymore. Deep voices flowing from the radio announcing the daily news. Rain and snow falling all around, soaking the black pavement. My eyes closing, opening, closing again. And then, sleep.

Those days seem so far away now. Days when sleep was effortless.

I turn the radio off and the sound of the heater’s steady whir fills my car. My little nephew sinks into a deeper sleep, but still manages to hold on to his homework sheet. The corners of the white paper crinkling beneath his fingertips.

All day, I wait for the pretty rain.

Later, when the rain has stopped falling and the clouds have started to roll away, my little nephew and I lean against the kitchen windowsill to watch the sun go down. The sky fades from bright orange to dark blue. It is really beautiful.

The last time I saw such a beautiful sky was this past September on my birthday, while I was volunteering on the Navajo reservation near New Mexico. I was there with a group that repairs old houses in impoverished communities. I spent my days painting, tearing out decaying tiles from bathroom floors, and helping to build a porch with a wheelchair ramp for an old woman who had lost the use of her legs. The morning of my birthday, I woke up in a makeshift dormitory to the sound of Navajo women cooking breakfast in the kitchen and talking to each other in their native language. Rays of light from the early morning sunrise streamed in through the windows. Outside, the last remaining stars were fading behind deep purple clouds strewn across the horizon of a pale pink sky. This is really beautiful. That was the only thought in my head as I lay on my cot, drifting in and out sleep, listening to water from the faucet running over dishes clinking in the sink. Coffee brewing and eggs frying in pans. The quiet voices of the Navajo women floating in and out of my evaporating dreams. I remember thinking that I wanted to write about this moment, when I could find the right words to describe it. But every time I tried, I ended up writing the same thing over and over: This is really beautiful. I just couldn’t find any other words.

Now, my little nephew and I lean on the windowsill and watch the sun sink behind the mountains. Far beyond the crooked, empty branches of the frozen Oak and Maple trees standing in our backyard, a tiny cluster of faint stars flickers against the indigo horizon.

Do you want to know something? I say to my nephew. The elements that are found in stars are the exact same elements that run through our blood.

Really? He says.

Really, I say. I guess that means we are made of stars.

He cups his hands and stares down at his little palms.

For a long time, he says nothing. And then, I think this is really beautiful. This is what he says as he puts his hands on the windowsill and looks out at the sunset. It’s really beautiful out there. And we are really lucky.

There just aren’t any other words.

This is really beautiful.

And we are really lucky.

Really.