The Brightest Star in Heaven

The Brightest Star in Heaven The wedding festivities have come to an end. I pulled through — but not without struggle. Grief clung to me like a second skin, even as I smiled and dressed up, even as I stood beside loved ones. It was the presence of my siblings, their quiet strength and unwavering support, that helped me move through each day. They held me up in moments I didn’t know I was crumbling. During the wedding, I met many people — friends, relatives — who had reached out to me over the past year. I had shut most of them out, surrounded myself in silence, unable to find the words to reply or the energy to engage. This time, face to face, their compassion felt real and gentle. I realized they, too, had been grieving in their own ways. Idris attended his family reunion — something we all used to go to together. Sana and I had been part of so many of those past reunions. It was hard to accept that this time it was Maahir and Serena representing the younger generation, and Sana wasn’t there. After the reunion, Idris traveled with his mom to New Jersey to visit the cemetery. The tombstone is finally complete — a painful kind of finality, yet also a quiet comfort to know her resting place is marked with care and love. At one point during the wedding, my nephew Danny came up to me, his eyes welling with tears. He was thinking of Sana. "Is Sana the brightest star in heaven?" he asked, his voice trembling. I had to pause — the lump in my throat made it hard to speak. But I looked him in the eyes and said, “Yes, she is. And she always will be.” In a sea of lights, laughter, music, and rituals, my heart carried the weight of absence. But it also held onto the warmth of memory. Sana’s absence was everywhere — in the laughter she would’ve shared, in the dresses she would’ve picked, in the joy she so effortlessly brought to any celebration. Yet somehow, her presence was everywhere too — in our shared stories, in the way the wind whispered through the trees, in Danny’s tearful question. She is, and always will be, the brightest star watching over us.