In October? Late November?

The dinner hour had long since dawned. I had been busy. Or was, perhaps, procrastinating (dinner is when I often feel Wes's absence most keenly). Spencer's hunger was immediate, so, needing to act fast, I decided on leftover vegetable stew. But we couldn't sit at the table that night. I couldn't. I heated the soup in a single tupperware container, grabbed the picnic blanket to wrap around our bodies and urged my hesitant kids onto the back porch. I wrapped them up on either side of me and fed them alternating bites of stew with a single spoon. We ate and watched the stars and I felt myself start to warm up from the inside out.

I was glad Spencer remembered and reminded me of those sweet backyard moments. But he probably didn't remember the question Lucy had asked under the stars that night, in between bites of soup:

"Mom, what does a shooting star look like?"
I smiled, in spite of the sudden stab of pain. Remember? My heart asked Wes while I offered Lucy a token answer. Remember the shooting star we saw together the summer you asked me to marry you? Remember how we laughed? And how I cried? And how you kissed me? 

"Will we see one?" Lucy asked.
"Probably not tonight," I said. Please? my emotion prayed. Please, please, please??

We were cozy and the sky was dark.  And vast.  I watched the stars intently for a moment, heart full of longing, tight with pain.  Please? my sentimental subconscious continued to plead.  But after a minute I smiled and shook my head.  I was being too stupid for words.  I turned my attention from the stars to Spencer who, tummy full, had moved from the porch and was running, leaping, dancing across the lawn in the dark. I watched his delighted face, lit up by the glow of our over-the-fence street lamp. I almost laughed at a burst of his particularly excited antics when a sudden stab of deep joy brought tears instead.  My very own shooting star.  I laughed out loud then and watched my happy children play and play in the dark while my tears continued to stream, and my heart continued to swell with the Spirit's quiet, striking witness. 
That quiet, pressing witness.
More convincing than the cosmos.