Blessings to all. Sue
UPON A STAR
A single star shone, amid a blanket of velvet sky, like a tiny diamond displayed in a ring box. But just as a ring is not seen unless the lid is lifted and is not enjoyed until placed on a finger, and has no meaning unless accompanied by a promise, so the star was waiting to be spotted.
“Oh!” Tanya’s hand shot up in response to the star shooting in a streak of light through the night sky. Pointing, she shouted, “Did you see it Danny? Did you?”
Her older brother ignored her, his thoughts on the curvy blond on the blanket near them. Tanya jumped up and down. Her joy expressed in excited little hops in the cooling sand of the beach. “A falling star! I saw it. I saw it.”
“Stop it! You’re kicking sand all over the blanket. Sit down and shut up.”
The child stopped jumping, yet her toes continued to wiggle around like happy little caterpillars, burrowing in and out of the grains of sand. “You missed it,” she said.
“Just sit,” he growled, yanking her down. “Why did I get stuck having to watch you?”
“Sorry.”
If he would have looked he would have seen sincerity in the dark brown eyes. He didn’t notice. Instead he stood and strutted over to the blond, leaving Tanya alone on the gray wool blanket. That’s when she remembered the part about wishing, so she closed her eyes and made a wish. She lay back, staring in wonder at the sky with its twinkling lights. “Where do stars go when they fall?” she asked the night air.
Tanya imagined that the tiny lights fell into a deep dark hole, swallowed up in black nothingness. Then she thought that perhaps that was wrong. Maybe all stars, when they were finished shining traveled to a place of rest—a star-resting place.
In that place stars didn’t shine at full brightness but blinked on and off like Christmas tree lights set on a timer. When some were giving light, others had their rest time. The little girl smiled, happy with her conclusion about falling stars and their final destination. In the background the surf rocked steadily and the sound lulled the child into a peaceful sleep.
When Tanya awoke many hours later it was very dark. She sat up and looked around. There was no one nearby. She saw only a few pale shadows of people way off down the beach. Her first instinct was to call out, to yell her brother’s name, but somehow she knew it would do no good.
Tanya pulled the blanket around her, up over her head, until only her large brown eyes showed. She remained silent and licked the saltiness off her lips. Then, in the quiet, she heard the tiny sound—a cry, a faint whimper, a calling out from someone even smaller than her. The voice was so frail, so weak that Tanya strained to listen.
The child stood, and headed toward the voice. She moved closer to the boardwalk, and the sound grew stronger. She followed the plea to a group of bushes. There, on the hard soil, under the branches, hidden in nighttime shadows, lay a naked little baby.
Tanya gasped in astonishment. “Oh!” She looked skyward and whispered, “Thank you.”
She bent and touched the cheek of the newborn with her index finger. “Shh, little baby. You’re okay now. I found you.”
Tanya’s exposure to newborns was quite vast even though she was just a pre-schooler herself. She’d become an aunt five months before when one of her older sisters delivered a baby. And that boy child, named Nathan, lived in the same apartment as Tanya and the rest of her family.
Tanya bent low. “Are you cold?” She settled herself on the sidewalk with her back to the bush, sharing a corner of her woolen blanket with the infant. From there she could watch the baby and sing to the baby and make sure the baby was safe.
Another star broke through the darkened sky, like a night light just plugged in and carefully positioned—it shone down on the two abandoned children. In that same moment, around the block, Sharon shook her husband’s shoulder.
“Larry. Wake up!”
“Huh?” he asked, his voice groggy.
“It was past Linda’s curfew so I got up to see if she was home. She’s in her room and she’s crying—real hard. Something’s wrong.”
The tremor in his wife’s voice was enough to get Larry out of bed. Together they went to check on their only child. That’s when they learned all she’d been through that day and all she’d been hiding for the last nine months. She sobbed out the news that their first grandchild lay under some bushes near the beach.
Sharon remained to tend to her broken daughter, remembering vividly her own travail in birth giving. Larry ran toward the beach, his feet slamming the pavement, his heart pounding in his ears. He struggled to absorb all the new information that had unexpectedly flooded into his life.
When he reached the spot, near the restroom, which his daughter had described, he found not one, but two little ones. Later, he would say that the light from a single star showed him the way.
He knelt there and whispered a prayer before waking the little girl. She woke and looked at him with big brown eyes. She registered no surprise or fear.
“Hello,” he said. “My name is Larry. What’s your name?”
“Tanya.”
“Who is taking care of you?” he asked.
The little girl pointed to heaven. Larry nodded and swallowed.
“I mean—are you alone?”
“No,” she pointed to the baby.
As the waves clapped upon the shore and broke with splashes of joy, Larry took his first look at his first grandchild. His heart trembled with love.
The little girl said, “My wish came true.”
Larry didn’t hear for his heart and hands were reaching for the baby. His large calloused fingers became a gentle cradle. He lifted her and held her to his massive chest. Her tiny chest rose and fell in response.
“My wish came true,” Tanya repeated.
“It did?” he asked, still kneeling.
“Yes,” she said and placed her hand on the baby’s head. “I wished that I wouldn’t be alone.”
Larry smiled down at the child. Then he peered tenderly into the brand new face of his granddaughter, wondering who she was and who she might grow to be.
“Her name is Star,” Tanya informed him.
“It is?”
“Yes. It’s a pretty name, huh?”
“Yes,” he said. A tear of thankfulness fell from his face onto hers—christening her—Star McCoy.
Somewhere, far away, in the place where stars go to rest, a certain newcomer star blinked on in silent witness that wishes, flowing from a childlike heart, really do still come true.
