Yesterday, after mankind passed the furthest from Earth we've ever travelled, the four astronauts radioed to mission command that they wanted to name a feature of the Moon after Reid Wiseman's wife, who passed away from cancer in 2020.

Astronaut Jeremy Hansen--and the entire crew--was unable to relay the message without tearing up. "A number of years ago, we started this journey in our close-knit astronaut family, and we lost a loved one...At certain times…we will be able to see this from Earth. And so we lost a loved one, her name is Carroll, the spouse of Reid, the mother of Katie and Ellie...And it's a bright spot on the moon. And we would like to call it Carroll."

As Victor Glover noted, just before radio blackout yesterday, "I would like to remind you of one of the most important mysteries there on Earth, and that's love."

It made me recall--curiously you might think--Bram Stoker's novel, Dracula.

Why?

Well, there is perhaps no better description of cancer than that of a vampire. But in the novel, the vampire doesn't get the last word. Vampires, cancer, suffering and death never get the last word. In the novel, Dracula is defeated, ultimately, because a husband loves his wife. The vampire wants her as his victim, but her husband and all those around her deeply love her--both for her own sake, and for the love that she and her husband bear for each other.

And so, the last words in the novel are these: "This boy will some day know what a brave and gallant woman his mother is. Already he knows her sweetness and loving care. Later on he will understand how some men so loved her, that they did dare much for her sake."

In the centuries to come, when eyes look upon "a bright spot on the moon," humanity will remember that this brightness has a name: Carroll. "The love of husband and wife is the force that welds society together," rightly opined John Chrysostom. But now we are all witnesses that the love of husband and wife is a force that travels well beyond the earth and the moon.

The craters of the moon tell its history. But one will forever tell another story: That a husband and wife once loved each other, and how some so loved her, that they did dare much for her sake.

Carroll Taylor Wiseman, Rest in Peace