The children, grown now, went first, and they did not fade as we did. They rose lightly, without effort, their bodies dissolving into motes of brilliance that scattered into the dark like seeds cast into boundless soil. They were star-born, and the universe welcomed them as its own. I watched them move across the constellations as easily as birds crossing sky, their laughter still audible, carried now by silence. There was no grief in their leaving, only awe, for they belonged to distances beyond measure.

But for us—for their mother and me—there was no departure apart. The light did not pull us into scattered threads, nor invite us into the wanderings of galaxies. Instead it gathered us together, pressed us closer, until our edges broke and vanished. My breath was hers, her gaze was mine, our limbs indistinguishable in fire. The joy was unbearable, the sorrow equally so: to lose myself and yet to gain her in fullness, to dissolve and yet to endure, to be nothing apart but everything together.

We did not ascend as two. We became one. Husband and wife merging into a single conflagration, a star sealed and indivisible, burning above the Mediterranean as testament to the love that had carried us through night and morning alike.

And though the children roamed freely, constellations their playground, they could always find us. For no matter how far they traveled, they would look up and see the light of what we had become: one star, radiant and eternal, the mother and father joined forever.