I tell my children, when they ask about our background, that our family is like a constellation, formed by five stars that are now meeting in the sky, and are viewed from afar as a resplendent unit.

I came from Colombia and lived in the City for 12 years before I met Marc. We were both being trained on an art form; he was a young filmmaker and I was a student of painting and sculpture. Surprisingly, at the time, we also lived only a few blocks from each other, we bought our breakfast at the same deli, and took the train at the same station—and yet, we never met.

But stars have a way of finding their allies in the sky, and eventually, our time to cross paths came along. In the following years, our life as a childless couple in New York was filled with travel, film, art parties, friends, and family events that inspired our daily lives and fueled our creative work. We also brought Queso home. He was a newborn dog, scared and fragile, and, with him, we formed a small constellation of 3 that traveled together for 10 years. From any vantage point, we were perceived by others as a perfect unit, an equilateral formation that glistened with love, balance, and artistry.

However, our constellation was meant to grow and, fourteen years after our first date, Marc and I met our children. Queso welcomed them as if he had been expecting them his entire life. They came from Colombia: two traveling stars, connected to each other since birth, who had remained unbreakable in their bond. Like all starts in the universe, chance and a force greater than all of us had made us gravitate toward each other in the sky.

Our children came from a place where they were unlikely to survive or meet us. So did our dog, who survived a kill shelter in Virginia. Today, we continue our journey together, forming a bright pentagon that embodies a home, standing out in the sky, and defying all odds of getting lost in the dark.

Para Marcos.