Europa

February 9, 2054

Dad and Diego are not the only people who sent me messages while I was asleep. Six years is a long time, and over that time some other people had reached out. Still, the list isn't long. Dad and Diego are the only people who knew exactly how to send messages up to the spaceship after all. Any other person who sent messages would either have to have come through them or contacted NASA directly. That's why I was pretty surprised that Alex, Diego's father, had sent me a message.

I haven't opened the message yet. The good feelings from the messages at home have been the only thing in my life distracting me from the sadness brought on by Richard's passing.

Reading the messages from home has gone a long way towards improving morale here on the space station, but it is still pretty low overall. Also, not all of the messages have been positive. Dr. Horvat's daughter's marriage had not lasted. He joked that it gave him a second chance to walk her down the aisle, but he was pretty upset about it. Lee's brother had also been in a serious car accident. I honestly didn't even know he had a brother. Hopefully all was well.

The other night Jessica Miller and I were talking as we zipped ourselves in our sleeping bags and she mentioned how she hasn't received any messages. She didn't expect much, but despite the strained relationship between her and her sister one message would have been nice.

I couldn't imagine how that felt. Out here orbiting Jupiter on a spaceship was a lonely place. Sure, we had each other, but it was my messages from home that reminded me of life back on Earth. I tried to give Jenifer a taste of that by showing her some of the photos I'd been sent from home. I think that helped!

I also suggested she reach out. It was never too late to try and mend a relationship. Part of me wants to delete Alex's message without even reading it, but I guess that would be going against what I just said. He'd reached out, the least I could do was read it.