The shooting star and him

 I have always been the one to be interested in looking at the sky. I live on the outskirts of Baytown. Where I live now, the houses are not close together at all. We have a whole acre and a half to ourselves. There are no major lights at night that ever block the stars. You can see them perfectly. I’ve lived here for over 6 years and in 2011 I saw a shooting star for the first time. It was beautiful for a few reasons.

That being my first shooting star is memorable, not because it’s the first I have ever seen, but because I got to experience the sight with a friend who passed away two days later.  My friend would visit me every day right after he got off of work. He rarely ever came inside my house because he would get off of work too late, so we would always look up at the sky. We would point at the different moon phases. Those have always interested me; Specially the Super moon phase. That is when the moon is really huge, it almost looks as big as earth. We couldn’t ever tell when a moon was really a planet, since all the stars where bright and big and small.

The shooting star went way too fast for me to even act on it, but when I pointed at it; all my friend said to me was, “Yes Jojo, I saw that.” Ever since then I see shooting stars every few days. I didn’t know how common and special they are. I do not know if it was just my mind or head, but I could have sworn that I heard a swooshing sound along with the star. Every shooting star now, I hear my friend’s voice and in some way, I feel as if he is there.

Ever since that day, I pay more attention to the sky at night. I think of him and that very shooting star, not knowing that that would be the last night we would get to see the night summer sky together. I look at it and I get lost in my mind. When I see a shooting star now, I have different feelings that run through me. None of them are good, and none of them are bad. I just feel numb now. But I enjoy it.

I feel fortunate enough to be able to see a whole glitter of stars where I live. Ever since I heard that the stars are being blocked by pollution, it is very unfortunate. Maybe the generation after me will never get too see how beautiful the night sky is. But for tonight, I will still be fortunate to be able to have a beautiful sight of what a real night sky is.