Stardust

It was late, hours after we put her to bed. I snuck into her room and shook her quietly. “Get up.” She rubbed her eyes and looked fairly confused, but smiled and put her arms up to be lifted out of her blankets. I took her out on the deck, where we had set up the telescope to gaze at the stars above. She pointed at planets and satellites and constellations. We oooh’d and ahhh’d at how many of those bright balls of gas you could actually see, away from the city lights, by the quiet of the lake. Then she said to me, “I’m ready to go back to bed now.” And off she went, hopefully with a memory she’ll dream about when she’d old enough to remember her crazy nerd mother, who woke her up in the middle of the night to stare at the sky.