The aurora borealis—nature’s most ethereal dance—is often found in the Arctic Circle, lighting up the skies over places like Alaska, Canada, Iceland, Greenland, the Nordic countries, and Russia. But sometimes, when the universe stirs with a particular kind of magic, those lights travel farther south, painting the heavens in places they don’t usually reach. Places like Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The Chipewyan Dene people of the Arctic believed that the aurora was more than a cosmic phenomenon—they saw the lights as the spirits of loved ones dancing across the night sky. The brighter the lights, the happier the spirits. I like that theory because it feels personal.

It has been six months since my son Tom died on May 8, 2024. He was 23 years old—a fresh college graduate, a gifted artist, a sensitive, deep-thinking, goofy young man standing at the precipice of his life. He was on the verge of greatness, of discovery, of everything.

Two days after he died, our shattered little family—me, my daughter and her fiancé, my ex-husband (Tom’s dad) and his partner—arrived to gather Tom’s belongings and mourn with his friends. On that day, May 10, 2024, the northern lights came to Pittsburgh for the first time in 23 years. Yes, as far south as Pittsburgh! To where my son had just recently settled down to begin his young, post-college life.

That night, as I lay in my hotel bed, devastated and exhausted, his friends began texting me photos of the sky above the city—shimmering in hues of pink and green.

“He’s painting the skies for us,” they said.

Indeed he was.

Science calls it Hale’s Rule—a solar cycle that peaks every 22 to 23 years, creating conditions ripe for auroras to appear in unusual places. But science will never be able to explain why the lights chose that precise moment and city to appear. Because it wasn’t science, It was Tom. It was Tom’s spirit and energy—no longer tethered to earth or rules. It was his love for me and his sister, his father and stepmom, and his amazing community of friends and fellow artists.

I still feel him everywhere and notice his presence in people and places—woven into the fabric of this world and reminding me that love never ends.

I am forever blessed to be Tom’s mother—to have carried him, raised him, loved him, and received his love in return. He lives on in his older sister, who carries his spirit in her own unfolding story, and through his friends, who continue to honor the many ways his laughter, creativity and goodness inspired them.

When he was 19, Tom embarked on a Nordic road trip with his Finnish friends, Sami and Nalle. They ventured all the way to the Arctic Circle, hoping to catch a glimpse of the northern lights. Then, the aurora eluded him, but now he has the freedom to dance with them.