I woke up to a story today that shows just how small and insignificant we are when we look at our place in the universe.

Voyager 1 was launched by NASA on September 5, 1977. Its mission to study the solar system and beyond.

It has been travelling through space for almost fifty years now. It will go on indefinitely — unless it gets picked up by aliens along the way!

It is now so far away that it has become the furthest human-made object in space.

And after fifty years, it is now one light-day away.

That’s a long way, but…

The nearest star to our sun is over four light-years away.

The size if the universe is currently estimated to be around 13.8 billion light-years.

In time, if Voyager survives to travel 13.8 billion light-years, it will outlive our planet and sun.

Our Place in The Universe was originally published in The Daily Cuppa on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“Newly elected senators walk toward an orientation meeting inside the U.S. Capitol on Monday, less than a week after Democrats took control of the House and Senate,” read a CBS lead sentence.

The fellow in the blue suit, new guy Josh Turek, representing my state of Iowa, has never walked, having been born with spina bifida. But he has crawled up hundreds of stairs, dragging his wheelchair, asking for our votes.

When visiting our community for the first time a year ago, he said something that stuck with me.

Running for the United States Senate is not the hardest thing I’ve done.

This is not an essay about the details of Josh’s life, politics, or America’s midterm election.

It’s about each of our stories. How we’ve traveled from A to B. What challenges we’ve faced.

Once you look closely at a new person, choosing the better verbs becomes much easier.

The Person in the Blue Suit was originally published in The Daily Cuppa on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

It had been over a year since Ravi lost his wife. His children and friends worried about him. The cheerful man they once knew now moved through life on autopilot.

Today was her birthday. After the puja, Ravi went to the park to feed the ducks. He slipped off his sandals and walked barefoot on the grass, just as his wife loved to do.

As he finished his walk, he spotted a tiny puppy chewing on one of his slippers.

“Hey!” Ravi called.

The puppy grabbed the slipper and raced away. Ravi chased after it.

When the puppy finally dropped the slipper and looked up, its tail wagging furiously, something seemed to snap inside Ravi. A laugh escaped him before he could stop it.

For the first time in a year.

His wife had always loved stray animals. Ravi smiled through his tears.

Maybe healing arrived in a stolen slipper.

The Snap That Broke His Grief was originally published in The Daily Cuppa on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I heard the plunk from the bathroom. “What was that?” I called through the closed door. Nothing.

Everyone has a family story of someone who collapsed while shoveling snow, raking leaves, or reading in their morning chair, just as Rebecca was doing, while I was tinkling.

But in this case, I knew precisely what had happened. And my call-out was a bit of play-acting to fool my brain. I knew it was Bob, back from visiting the Pope. When I last saw him a few months ago, the hood was white, and the stage was black.

I knew the thud was likely Dylan’s weighty songbook along with my MAC, notebook, and writing desk.

Instead of singing the chorus of Like a Rolling Stone in the twenty seconds I washed my hands, I thought about my partner's absence and felt “I love you,” as I came through the door.

A Brief Reminder of the Possibility of Loss was originally published in The Daily Cuppa on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.