The Emily Star

My sister Emily had leukemia but was in remission.  We wanted to let her know how special she was so we sent away to a mail order place in New Hampshire where, for forty-five dollars, they sell you the title to a star and you name the star after someone and they send you a celestial map that is all blueprint blue with spidery white lines and compass points and big red dots.  We checked it out and found the designated location of what we named the Emily star situated at the intersection of M and twelve, M-12, on the celestial map, a star in a cluster of stars in the sword handle of Perseus, the brochure said.

On a freezing cold Sunday night we all headed outside after dinner to find the star.  Emily - who was about twenty then - didn't join us.  She wasn't feeling too good, she said, so she just stayed inside watching TV.  So it was me, my wife and the kids who went out to the edge of the yard just before the hollow starts to slope down and, after going over what the brochure said about the location, we all looked up.  The kids were complaining about the cold and the wind - they were shivering – and for a few minutes it looked like we wouldn't ever be able to find the star when Ben - our oldest - kind of suddenly pointed it out and we all just stood there amazed.  My other kid - his name is Jeremy - ran inside to get Emily to come out but she wouldn't budge off the couch and finally I just ran in and threw my hunting jacket around her shoulders and practically pushed her out the door and sure enough she saw it and the sight of it put the biggest smile on her face.  The Emily star was blinking like the only light on a tiny Christmas tree and we could all see it clear as day, there was no need for a telescope or anything like that and we cheered and cried and talked about God and love and life.

It wasn't the only time we'd all go out to see the star.  We believed it was a beacon almost - a light in the universe dedicated to my sister  - and she would join us each time whether she was feeling OK or not and she'd say how happy she was about having a star named after her and she'd get all teary-eyed, going on about Mom and Dad and our friends from high school and how things used to be...summers at the cabin, hay rides, the carnival that came to town every June and the big fair in August over in Bloomsburg where Emily won first prize three years in a row for the beautiful blankets she made and then we'd start talking about our dog Rose who passed on when we were both in high school and the crazy things Rose used to do that'd have us doubled over laughing. But after awhile we stopped rehashing the past because Emily would always start to get weepy and go on and on about some guy named Danny who lived a few towns over and was going to marry her and how he went out and cheated on her and got some other girl pregnant and how he ended up marrying this other girl and Emily'd get all depressed and say she'd never get herself mixed up with another man.  It just wasn't worth it, she'd say.  We understood how she felt and all but to be honest we'd do everything to change the subject but that never worked.  It was odd to see her go on that way because generally speaking she was not a bitter person.  She was pretty much like my wife - a religious type of girl - and that's what seemed to keep her going.  She never once lost her faith in God even though her health wasn't the best and her chances of meeting another man, having kids, all the things every young girl dreams about, would probably never happen.  In the middle of all this she'd still look forward to finding that star, almost like it was hope itself up there in the big sky, something that made her want to keep going on - like it was a sign from God and I think she felt that maybe things would turn out all right and then we'd all hold hands and pray silently and then go inside and play Monopoly or watch TV and try to forget our troubles for awhile.

Then two weeks ago, right after Emily got real sick again, so sick she couldn't even come downstairs for meals or anything, we decided to go out while she was resting and look for the star and say a special prayer for her and when we went out we couldn't find it - it was gone - like it had never been there in the first place and we all held hands and said the Lord's Prayer and looked up at Emily's window and it had the lightest kind of glow in it from her bedside lamp and we joined hands and bowed our heads and, without saying another word, went inside.

Vernon Waring

Vernon Waring has been a newspaper reporter, feature editor, and public relations account executive. He is currently employed in the quality control department of a Philadelphia printing company. His poetry has appeared in The Writer, The Iconoclast, the Alabama School of Fine Arts Poetry Quarterly, the Midwestern University Quarterly, New Dimensions, Anthology, the South Street Star, MAYA, and the Stylus. His work has also been featured on NPR-sponsored Prairie Home Companion web site. His light verse has been published in the Saturday Evening Post and the Philadelphia Daily News.

Email: Vernon Waring

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