Feeling the Rays

When I was 8 years old in Munich, Germany in 1948, I saw sun regularly. I had been seeing it for years, in fact, but until after the War, I had no idea just how bright and buoyant it could be. While my memories are hazy, I do remember being 4 years old in 1944 and running around the streets in our bombed-out neighborhood trying to find some fun in literal and figurative dark times.

The sun, like much of the world, was covered in haze. Bombs filled the skies with dust and the cemeteries with people. My blond hair always seemed to smell like smoke and have a tinge of grey. I have to dig deep into the recesses of my mind to remember if we even saw the sun that year in its full glory. Air raids killed my friends down the street. Children were left orphaned. We hid in basements and bomb shelters at the constant shelling. While much of the city died, we somehow survived.

I had no idea how bright the sun actually was until we moved to South Dakota when I was 10. We escaped Germany one evening with other families from our neighborhood. I packed my meager belongings - two shirts, a book on astronomy, a torn pair of black pants, two pairs of underwear, and one pair of once-white sneakers. I know which of these things I treasured most. How we ended up in South Dakota after arriving to Ellis Island I do not recall. Years later my mother told me she wanted to be as far away from the coastline as possible, and when the rickety car we borrowed from friends already in the states died, we stayed where it landed.

What I can fondly remember was the sun. Sunshine reflecting off the blankets of snow gave the landscape of our family farm and ethereal dimension. One side of our farm was soybeans, while a small patch on the other grew massive sunflowers. When the skies went overcast, I trotted along to the sunflower patch, closed by eyes and conjured the glow, the smiles, the warmth. During winter, rays cast long shadows from the trees and began to melt the piles of white fluff. I would eagerly run outside in my jacket and gloves to roll around, feel the dualities of hot and cold. Life and death.

The sun became such a powerful force for me I grew up to be a solar physicist. In Germany, I never knew such a job existed. Really, our only job then was live. I went to university like many others here, and stumbled upon a professor teaching this intriguing topic. That was the day my life changed. I had no idea who I was, what I wanted to do when I grew up. Back in Munich, us kids were never asked that question because it was never a given we would make it that far. Parents didn’t want to get their hopes up or ours, so dreaming was a silly game we never played. Daydreaming meant you might miss a bomb raining down on you.

That day as a freshman in basic physics, my professor touched on studying the sun. Heliophysics he called it. I dove into all the books I could read, and made the sun my profession as a researcher myself with NASA. I completed my PhD with this same professor, and she changed my entire life’s trajectory. I had no idea was NASA was until she connected me with an internship my senior year, and I stayed with the agency throughout my doctoral studies.

Now, I could see the sun, learn its secrets, and share some of my own. While my dissertation research was purely scientific, I did manage to sneak in an anecdote at the end about my childhood. One happy memory involves my sister and I after the War ended playing in our backyard, her now-radiant blonde hair matching mine, the dirt and dust mostly gone from our locks. We were running around as I imagined carefree children did when she fell onto her back. I panicked, but realized she was squealing in the grass, making dirt angels given this was June. Dirt angels are exactly like you imagine - moving your arms and legs back and forth to create an angel shape in the dirt just like the snow.

Her eyes were tightly shut and she was laughing. Laughing. Another sound I realized years later I missed as much as the bright sun. I flung myself down near her, not caring about my clothes or hair or state of mind. I closed my eyes tight and imagined us making dirt angels somewhere safer, quieter. When we moved to South Dakota, we took every chance we could to make snow angels (and even some dirt angels in the patches when our parents weren’t paying attention). Before I died, I made sure to pass along this tradition to all the family grandchildren. I want them making dirt and snow angels in the sun forever.

Eventually, cancer took me from my family, from the sun, from my sunshines. I specifically wanted to be buried back in Munich, as it was my home. The city was our origin story. Its demise gave me life. Gave us life. While I realize it was a logistical hassle to get me back home, I am forever grateful as I can still see around me places of triumph and sadness, glee and despair. For whatever this city is and does, it is always part of me. And now I always am a part of it, buried beneath its surface.

So on this day, I soak up the sun as it hits my gravestone. The ivy tangles rejoice as they have a force pushing them to grow. The plant doesn’t strangle me. Instead, it reminds me that the sun generates life. It generates death. The sun’s rays fill me with warmth and memories of a Munich past and present. The sun is still my life-giving force even in death. It conjures my memories, stirs my soul in heaven.