Reflections

It was a different kind of Fourth of July for me this year. For the last 4 years, my 4th of July plans involved planning a week-long trip to Columbia to celebrate Rachel’s birthday. Her birthday’s on the 8th, and with the three day holiday weekend, it was always convenient to come down that weekend. It was a little different this year since I’m now here on a permanent basis.

I’ve come to love fireworks. There’s just something about leaning your head back and watching the brilliant bursts of color against the night sky. I could watch them for hours. And then I look at the faces of some of the people I love most in the world, with the colors of the fireworks reflecting in their eyes, and I feel like everything is almost perfect.

Until I think of the one person who I miss more than anything. Last year when we watched the fireworks, I sat there with tears rolling down my face, and the song “somewhere out there” playing through my head. (The song is from an American Tale, the movie where the little mouse is separated from his family, and he and his sister are hundreds of miles apart, yet staring up at the sky and singing this song. Total heart-breaker) This year… same thing happened. I’m not sure what it is. I don’t have any strong memories of watching fireworks with her. I associate the 4th of July with Lauren, not Emily, just because it’s become a tradition that we spend it together. I’m not even sure if Emily even liked fireworks to be perfectly honest. But something about staring up into the vastness of the sky makes me wonder if somehow, she’s looking down at the same sky I am. If she sees the same brilliant colors bursting in the sky, or if she can see the reflection of them in the tears running down my face, and if she knows just how desperately I miss her.

Which I know is highly unlikely. Yet somehow, staring up at the sky and even thinking of the possibility, in all of it's improbability, is a comfort enough.

Somewhere Out There
written by James Horner, Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil

Somewhere out there beneath the pale moonlight
Someone's thinking of me and loving me tonight

Somewhere out there someone's saying a prayer
That we'll find one another in that big somewhere out there

And even though I know how very far apart we are
It helps to think we might be wishing on the same bright star

And when the night wind starts to sing a lonesome lullaby
It helps to think we're sleeping underneath the same big sky

Somewhere out there if love can see us through
Then we'll be together somewhere out there
Out where dreams come true