THE silence filled the room with the question. I wasn’t sure of the answer. He was too young to really know. It was always on my mind to be honest, I just… Never knew how to answer it. His voice rang through my head like a wind chime; the words shot around like a shooting star. “What happens when we die, grandpa,” he asked me again.

I rose slowly, my knees creaking with the floorboards, and motioned for him to follow me. I opened the screen door gingerly and let James run out into the warm night. I walked slowly through the golden fields as he chased lightning bugs, but never straying too far. He told me all about Kindergarten and the like as we did so. For the briefest of moments, I had almost believed that he had forgotten his primary question, but I knew he was too smart to forget.

Just as we crested the ridge high above the house, my worn arms scooped him up and lifted him over my head and onto my shoulders. “All of those stars up there,” I began, “… That’s where we go when we die.”

There was a deafening long pause as he stared up at the sky’s crystals before he asked, “Well… which one’s grandma?”

My heart tugged at my chest as I searched the night heavens. “That one,” I said as I pointed to the brightest, most beautiful blue star I could find. It twinkled as James stared, awe-struck, at it. “ We all become one when we die, none of our problems exist then, none of our differences… we’re just stars.”

“What’s all of the little ones that look like water,” he questioned, pointing to the Milky Way’s band.

“That’s a river,” I began, recalling something similar my grandfather had told me, “ it connects the stars and holds their past memories in its currents.” He sat wondering, gazing, silent. We must have stayed there for half an hour looking at the stars. I glanced up at one point and saw his small lips moving soundlessly as he stared at the blue star. James’ hands were warm on my forehead as we walked back down the golden hills to the house with its single, yellow light bulb on. My daughter Elizabeth, James’ mother, stood on the back porch and yelled at us when we were close, but her voice held relief, not anger.

“We were worried sick, where have you two been?”

James answered before I could, “just visiting Grandma.”