The Moon and Tears

A few minutes before 8:00 pm on Sunday, July 20, 1969, I was lying on my stomach in the living room of my family’s house next to my older brother. I was six, he was eight, and our parents had invited three other couples to come over to watch history happen on our new black and white TV. The picture quality wasn’t great and I was pretty sleepy, but I remember the man in the bulky white suit stepping off the ladder onto the surface of the Moon.

Everybody started clapping. I gave it a few seconds then looked over my shoulder at my dad and said, “Is that it?”

Later, when he gave me and my brother piggyback rides down to the bedroom we shared in the basement, I didn’t understand why there were tears on his face. The next and last time I saw him cry was twelve years later when the CBC announced that Terry Fox had died. I wish sometimes that I’d known him as he was then—when he read Clarke and Asimov in paperback and watched Star Trek (but only when no other adults were in the room) and believed, as so many of his generation did, that his children could reach the stars.

Time to make another cup of tea. If you came in peace, be welcome.