bye bye telescope

One of the things I've noticed about grieving, you have to keep saying 'good-bye' to things.  Now, it's the telescopes turn.  We had bought it when Ian was sick; Eric wanted to find something scientific that he thought Ian would enjoy that we could all do together.  We had this little rinky-dink telescope but all the 'dots' we saw looked fuzzy so one day a really nice, expensive telescope arrived at our door.  And you know what?  I didn't mind at all.  When your child is sick, when you think your child may die; you don't care about the money.  The important thing was to create memories and if that telescope would put a smile on his face, it was worth every penny.

We tried it out in the backyard a few times, it worked pretty well but Eric deemed the city 'too bright'. We must go in search of darkness and we found it.  The three of us bundled up (it was February 23rd, 2012) and loaded up the van in search of a dark place to look at the stars.  We found it on San Antonio Rd. between Highway 135 and Highway 1.  We parked along the road and Eric began to set-up the telescope.  He insisted we needed our 'night vision' to see the stars and planets properly so any form of light was forbidden.  Ian & I were okay with that until we started to hear rustling in the nearby shrubbery; loud rustling accompanied by animal-like noises.  I retreated to the van but Ian was braver than I; he wrapped up in this Indian blanket he liked, throwing it over his head and trekked over to his dad to look at the night sky.  It was a good night.  It was our last night with Ian and the telescope.

Now, some other dad is looking for a 'starter' telescope.  Maybe he'll create memories with his son or daughter like we did with Ian.  It's silly, but I want him to know the history behind this particular telescope.  I want him to know the precious memories it created.  I know it's just a 'thing' but some 'things' are linked to memories and that makes them hard to get rid of.  I also know that the memories won't go away even if the telescope does.

So, bye-bye telescope.  I hope you help some other family create wonderful memories.