Completely in the Dark

“Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are…”

That may’ve been the first question I ever asked as a human being.

Along with “The Itsy-Bitsy Spider” and “Happy Birthday,” it was among the first songs I ever learned to sing.

I quickly honed in on “Twinkle, Twinkle,” at the heart of which led to a lifelong need to keep asking questions.

In 2008, the year Mom and Dad died, I couldn’t stop looking up at the sky. Daytime, nighttime, sunny or cloudy—it must’ve been an old habit.

Our Maryland neighbor Mr. Harrison kept a telescope in his backyard shed. One summer he invited me and my brother to gaze at either a comet or meteor—I can’t recall which.

Wow, I thought, I have to get a telescope, too!

In Minnesota I often stargazed during the summers before high school, on our dock at…