The Promise I Made to My Dying Grandmother
When I was 13, my grandmother Daisy taught me that the stars weren’t just distant fires in the sky — they were storytellers, much like her. Each evening, we’d sit together on her porch, chamomile tea warming our hands, as she pointed to the constellations and spun legends around them. She wove Greek myths with tales from our own family, stitching the cosmos to our history. Those nights lit more than my love for astronomy — they bound me to her in a way nothing else could.
At 15, I learned she was dying. Terminal cancer, the doctors said — six months at most. That night, she placed a worn leather journal in my hands. On its first page: “For Justin.” Inside were star maps and constellations of her own invention — The Scholar, The Lover, The Father — symbols of the life she wished I would one day live. As her strength faded, she asked me to keep writing in the journal after she was gone. I promised I would.
Grandma Daisy left us beneath Orion’s bright belt, just as she had wished. Her last words were soft but certain: “Look for me in Cassiopeia. I’ll be the brightest jewel in the queen’s crown.”
When I was 17, I inherited her house. I kept her tradition alive — every night on the same porch, I looked skyward. Her journal never closed; I added new stories to its pages, carrying forward the dialogue we had started.
Years later, I studied astrophysics, married a woman who shared my wonder for the universe, and had a daughter, Phoebe. Now she sits beside me where I once sat, pointing her small finger toward the stars and asking questions just as I did.
Last week, we added a new constellation to Grandma’s journal. I called it The Dreamer — a little girl reaching toward the heavens. It belongs to Phoebe.
And when meteors streak across the night, I feel Daisy’s presence in every flash of starlight. Her love remains etched in the sky, glowing eternal in Cassiopeia — a promise kept, a story passed from one generation to the next.