To the man up there

Dear Dad,

Sometimes I look up and wonder if you're looking down at the same time.

Would you wave? Are you?

Mum says if I look too long I'll crick my neck.

Crick.

Like the little bugs that jump in the grass behind our house.

Only, if they were missing a leg, so they weren't crickets anymore.

Sometimes it feels like I'm missing a leg too.

I don't squish them like the other kids.

What's it like up there?

Is it cold?

It always looks white (sometimes grey) and chalky and spotty to me.

Does that mean there's snow too?

But if it's all the way up there, where does the snow come from?

Sometimes I look in the sky and there's only half of it.

Or quarter.

Or most of it, with a big chunk missing.

Like when I'm already full but Mum put out dessert and I really like cheesecake so I take a big bite but then that's all I can manage.

Cheesecake doesn't taste like it's got cheese in it. Does it?

People always talk about your new home being made of cheese, but that's silly. It would melt from the sun, and get all stinky and yellow and gross.

Plus if you got too hungry, eventually you'd eat the whole place up, and then you'd have nowhere to live. Maybe you'd fall.

Maybe you'd fall back.

Mum doesn't seem to think so. She doesn't look up much anymore. More down at things- so many things.

Piles of washing, letters on the table, pans on the stove, and that one page of the book that she's been reading but clearly isn't because she never turns the page.

And at me.

But not in an angry way. She tries not to get mad, even when I get in the way.

Sometimes she stares so long, searching behind my eyes, it's like she's forgotten it's me.

What's she looking for?

When we go to the beach, the seaweed tickles my toes and the sand hoppers jump all over our blanket.

I like it when the tide is out, because then I get to go further in.

Mum says the tides are controlled by your orb (new word from the spelling list), and that they go in and out because of gravity's pull.

I think of it like one big long rope, twisting and turning all the way through space. It would be silver and shiny, easy to see in the inky black.

Reckon you could tightrope down? You would have to balance very carefully, because if you fell past Earth then I don't know what's down there.

I s'pose not.

I guess I could try when I'm bigger.

Sometimes, you aren't there at all. You go away for a while, and the night frightens me.

Where do you go? Are you sleeping?

Mum says I mustn't worry, and that you'll come back.

And you always do.

I know you're there. Like in the daytime, even when the sun is really bright, I can see you peeking out.

It's nice to know you're way up high.

You must be able to see almost everything going on.

Mum says you get the best view in the world, and that I mustn't spend all night looking up.

You're not going anywhere, right?

Love, Sammy

P.S. see you when I learn to tightrope walk:)