July 18, 1997

In the summer, we always sit out on the porch after supper. The trees overhead keep us cool, almost s cool as Mom’s fresh lemonade. Last night my cousins and aunts and uncles came over to visit. And after supper, we went out to sit on the porch and watch fireflies and tell stories.

Cousin Emma was there, and her brothers Stu and Charlie. Aunt Vera straightened up the kitchen so that Mom could relax out on the porch with us. Aunt Sylvia sat in the big rocker with Suzy and baby Mark on her lap. The rocker creacked with each rock - sree sraw, sree sraw. Dad kept trying to get rid of that creaky old rocker. Mom never let him, because we all loved to rock in it. Since the babies had the rocker tonight, I shared the wicker sofa with Aunt Mary and my sister Becky. Aunt Mary laughed whenever Becky and I jumped up to check for wicker marks on our legs.

The sunset last night wasn’t anything special. There were some pretty clouds, but not the enormous flowers or awesome fire paintings that we sometimes see. Afterward, the stars winked through the dark sky at us. As the last bit of sunlight disappeared behind the trees, crickets started screek-screeking in the grass, and the lightning bugs zipped and flashed all around us. None of us spoke for a long while. We just sat there, soaking up the darkness, watching the lightning bugs against the black sky. We listened to the crickets and the rocker, and every so often heard other animals off in the distance. We could hear the deep voices and laughter of the uncles inside, and the soft banging of the dishes that Aunt Vera was washing.

“Mom,” I said finally. “What are the stars?”

Mom looked at me and asked, “Well Cathy, what do you think the stars are?”

I chewed my fingernail for a moment while I thought about it. “I think the stars are… I think that whenever somebody dies, like Nanna, God puts a star for them in Heaven. Then we can still see the person every night, and we don’t have to miss them so much and feel so sad that they’re gone.”

Charlie laughed at me. “Silly Cathy! Everybody knows that only good people go to Heaven!”

Aunt Sylvia said, “Maybe it’s not so silly as all that, Charlie. What if God makes stars for everybody, even for naughty people? Then when we see their stars, we remember not to make the same mistakes that they made.”

Charlie didn’t say anything.

Stu glanced at his embarassed brother and said, “Mom tells a story about the stars. She says that the stars are where angels look down at everybody. The angels all have their own stars. That’s how they can watch over us and take care of us.”

Aunt Mary smiled. “Vera says that? When we were kids, she didn’t even believe in angels!”

“Yes she did, Mary,” replied Mom, with a laugh and a shake of her head. “She just liked to tell you that because it made you so angry.”

Becky and I couldn’t help laughing. We couldn’t picture Mom and Aunt Mary and Aunt Vera being little girls. It was even harder to imagine them doing things to make each other angry on purpose. Becky and I had never seen them do anything mean to each other.

Becky told us her idea then. “I think stars are windows, just like in a skyscraper. In the daytime, the sun is so bright that the windows look dark. But at nighttime it’s dark outside. Then you can see the light from the windows from far, far away. That’s why you can only see the stars at night.”

Charlie was still pouting. “What about clouds? You can’t see the stars when there are clouds!”

Becky’s face brightened as she had an idea. “Clouds are God’s curtains,” she answered. “Even God needs to be alone once in a while.”

Aunt Sylvia kept rocking - sree sraw, sree sraw. Baby Mark slowly closed his to sleep. “Charlie,” Aunt Sylvia said softly. “Do you have a story about the stars?”

Charlie kicked at the leg of his chair and then looked down at the floor. “We learned all about stars in school. They aren’t dead people, and they aren’t angels or windows either. Stars are just suns that are very far away. That’s all they are. Just suns.” I thought he looked sad, but I didn’t know why.

Mom was the first one to answer. “That is true, Charlie. Stars are suns that are very far away. But we can still imagine stories about them. It is fun to tell each other stories.”

“People have always loved the stars,” Aunt Mary said. “Some people thought the stars made pictures up in the sky. They made up stories about the pictures that they saw in the stars. I think that’s a whole lot nicer than just suns. Don’t you?”

Charlie nodded miserably. I looked up and saw Aunt Vera inside the screen door, wiping her hands on her skirt. She smiled at Charlie and Stu. Aunt Sylvia followed my glance and nodded to Aunt Vera.

Aunt Vera came out to join us. She kissed Stu on the forehead, and he tried to wipe it off. Then she picked Charlie up and hugged him tight. “Which story did you like best, Charlie, my little man?”

But Charlie didn’t answer. Little baby Mark did. He opened his eyes and pulled his thumb from his mouth, and then baby Mark said his first word. “Angel.”