“The world is certainly full of danger, and there are many dark places in it. But there is still much that is fair. In every country love is now mingled with sorrow, and perhaps it is growing louder.” ~JRR Tolkien
It was my son’s 15th birthday. His basketball game was canceled, so my wife, son, and I, a little disappointed, got back in the car and started heading home.
We were heading home as usual after the game. My wife was mid-sentence, and before she could finish reading, something caught my eye. There was an orange light in the sky.
He said almost nothing. I thought it might be a plane, so I didn’t want to disturb it. But something was different.
It wasn’t flashing. It didn’t move like an airplane. It left a long fiery trail across the dark sky.
I said, “Hey, what is that?” And all three of us looked up through the windshield at the same time. It moved across the sky for a few seconds, then became smaller and disappeared.
We took out our phones and found what we already suspected. Maybe a meteor, or maybe a fireball. We expected that much too.
But even knowing those words didn’t change the way I felt watching it cross the sky. The way each of us became quiet at the same moment, it was as if something in our hearts recognized it before our hearts did.
Science tells us what things are. I don’t know why it finds you when it does. We drove the rest of the way in mostly silence, that ray of light still playing in our minds.
We went home, lit the candles, and cut the cake. After my son put out the fire and made his wish, I wondered what he wished for while my wife pulled out old photos. One moment we were eating and the next we were passing our phones around the table looking at photos we hadn’t seen in years.
My 4-year-old son was there, his cheeks rounded, grinning at something off-camera. We were on the beach, all squinting at the sun. We laughed at the hairstyles and swimsuits we thought were cool at the time.
But beneath the laughter was something else, something that left us breathless and a little unfinished. We tried to fend off those feelings by saying things like, “Look, how little you were,” and “I can’t believe it was that long ago.” At one point we sat there for a while without saying anything, each looking at the same picture and feeling the same thing.
How did we get here so quickly? Where did all that time go? When you look around at your loved ones, all you really want, all the wishes and things under the candles, is that everyone is okay.
But no one knows what the future holds. As I sat there with the cake on my plate and the meteor still fresh in my memory, I felt the pain of that truth even more than usual.
I’ve been asking questions ever since that night. Did that orange flash have any meaning? Did the universe give us something or is it just a coincidence?
I don’t know. And I’ve made a kind of peace with not knowing. What I do know is that beauty can be found everywhere if we pay a little attention.
Watching a meteor with your family is the kind of thing that makes you stop and think about what else is out there. These moments do not announce themselves or ask for permission. They appear out of nowhere on the way home.
However, during the same drive, you might hear news about people being killed somewhere far away, or not so far away. You may walk by and see an old man sitting alone at a table in a bright window and wonder who is missing. Somewhere in your heart, you may be hugging someone you love or know, but that’s not always possible.
The same magical world that brings bright lights to the sky also brings unexplained suffering, sometimes within the same time and sometimes within the same mile. This is the part that is the most difficult for me, but I think the most important to hold on to. Life is both wonderful and terrifying.
Most of us have never been taught how to carry it. We are taught to work things out, find the silver lining, and move forward. But some people just want to be recognized.
Whether we realized it or not, the meteor was there, bright as a whole, and burning in the darkness. The collapse of the world was also there. Both were true on the same night, in the same sky.
I don’t think we are meant to learn to live within that tension so much as to resolve it. To make beauty beautiful without needing to cancel out pain. To continue to exist without sadness swallowing up the light.
That’s not a solution. That’s even more difficult than the solution. It’s a practice and some days are harder than others.
But I think the only way to live your life to the fullest is to drive home after a night that doesn’t go your way, look up, and see what’s out there.
The night I saw that meteor cross the sky, my son turned another year older. We didn’t plan it, we didn’t monitor it. We were driving home from a canceled basketball game when something amazing arrived.
I don’t know if that meant anything. But I know it was there and I know we watched it together. And I know that the same world that breaks your heart can also set the sky on fire.
About Daniel H. Shapiro
Dr. Daniel H. Shapiro is a keynote speaker, author, and mentor. He is passionate about human connection and the stories we carry with us. For more information about his book, The 5 Practices of the Caring Mentor, or his mentoring and speaking services, check out yourinherentgoodness.com.
