questions and endless discovery was like finding the Holy Grail.
To this day, no matter how many times I see it, the scope and breadth of the galaxy never ceases to amaze me.
“What are you looking at?” Regan’s question snaps me out of my drifting thoughts. I finish focusing my viewfinder and step away.
“Come see,” I beckon her over.
She smiles excitedly at me before she looks into the viewfinder and then back at me, and the delight in her eyes, clear even in the dark of dusk, makes my stomach do a flip.
“Wow it’s so beautiful. What is this?”
“It’s pointed at Venus. If you just look, you shouldn’t have to adjust it to see.”
“Oh my god, for real? Like the planet, Venus?” She puts her eye back to the scope and gasps and her back arches a little.
I wish I could look at the same time; I want to see what she does.
“This is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen, tell me about it, please.”
“For real?” I ask, surprised. My friends and family humor me and the wonder this holds for me, but they never ask me to talk about it.
“Yes, I want to know everything. God, I wish my kids could see this. This is mind blowing.” The awe in her voice is gratifying and the imagery her words conjure, rather than feeling like a pesky reminder of our outside lives, is endearing. “Well, tell me!” she demands.
I smile and oblige my goddess “Venus is the most unique of planets. After the sun and moon it’s the third brightest star in the sky. But it’s positioning makes catching sight of it rare.” I explain.
“Wow …I just can’t get over how small we are. Do you think that somewhere out there, someone is looking through a telescope and seeing us on one of those tiny stars, too?”
“Absolutely,” I answer right away.
She glances back at me with a mischievous grin on her face. “You believe in aliens?”
“Yes,” I say unequivocally and her jaw drops.
“You’re a doctor, a scientist of sorts, right? You can’t really believe in little green men.”
“We have no idea what lies at the edge of this galaxy and beyond. We can’t be the only intelligent life in the entire universe. They may not be human, but I think they’re there.
“I guess. Why haven’t they made contact then?”
“Same reason we haven’t. It’s fucking hard, no matter how smart you are, to travel through space to reach other galaxies. It would take three hundred years to reach the edge of our galaxy—well at least as it’s defined. No one really knows where the edge is. There are different measures, even within NASA.”
“Wow. It’s a wonder you’re a doctor and not an astronaut,” she says in awe.
I laugh and shake my head ruefully. “Until the year I decided to become a doctor, it was what I wanted to be. I had this book called Cosmos there was a time I thought it held the answer to everything.” Including my future with her.
“Huh, so, what happened? You lost interest?” she asks.
I sit down in the sand, gather a fistful of it, and let it sift through my fingers. Like she will in just a few days.
“No, I love space, but I couldn’t spend my life chasing something I could never catch.” I’m not sure if I’m still talking about space…or if I’m talking about her.
She walks over and sits next to me.
“You okay?” she asks. I hate the concern in her voice. I smile and toss the sand away, forcing my mind back to the conversation.
“Space discovery isn’t a challenge, it’s a quest without end. Voyager 2 launched in 1977 and forty years later, it’s only just reaching the edge of the heliosphere. Most of the people who launched that mission are dead. Imagine if there was a human being in there right now. Alone for forty years. Even if we could supply him with enough food and water to last that long, human beings are social creatures.”
“Why aren’t you an astronaut?” she asks in a whimsical, but still awed voice. Seeing her so relaxed and present, relaxes me, too.
I stare up at the endless sea of stars. I understand why human beings looked at the heavens and imagined it could only be the work of gods and goddesses.
“I used to want to be. But I want to spend my life answering questions and doing work that has an impact now. I admire the universe but ushering new life into the world…for