Ever since Aaron Simonton could talk, he insisted he was an alien from space.
In his childhood bedroom — which was painted dark blue with glitter to mimic the galaxy — he repeatedly told his mom, Cathy DiMaria Simonton, that he would return to outer space when he turned 13.
This summer, when Aaron’s ashes are loaded onto a rocket and launched into deep space, he will be proven correct.
“I guess in space-time, 13 years is actually 32 earth years,” Cathy wrote. “Part of me wonders, okay, maybe he was on to something.”
Aaron suddenly died earlier this month from an undetected tear in his esophagus, leaving behind a 10-year-old son. He was a beloved part of the Concord community, first working at the local Red Arrow Diner and then becoming a general manager at the Londonderry location. Close to 200 people attended his memorial service at the Holiday Inn in Concord and both locations of the Red Arrow closed for the afternoon to allow his colleagues to attend.
“It’s kind of a testament of the type of person that he was,” she said. “Aaron’s always been our silly guy, always laughing and smiling and making other people laugh.”
As Cathy skimmed through paperwork from the funeral home, an entry at the bottom of the page caught her eye: “memorial spaceflight.”
“I know how much he would just be so excited for this,” she said.
She recalled a Norman Rockwell poster in Aaron’s childhood home that depicted four boys huddled around a spaceship they were building. Each of Cathy’s four sons reminded her of one of the poster’s characters. The boy in the corner of the poster, patiently waiting with an astronaut helmet on, always reminded her of Aaron.
After some digging, the pricey nature of space exploration dawned on her. She posted a fundraising page on GoFundMe, called “Aaron needs a ride ‘home’!” and within a week after she posted, the full price of his ticket was covered by donors.
For $15,000, Elestis, the leading provider of memorial spaceflight missions, promises that the inscribed capsules with cremated remains will blow past the Earth-Moon system and into “deep space” where it will float amongst other planets, asteroids and moons in our solar system.
The remains of Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, and Apollo-era astronaut Phil Chapman will also be aboard the Enterprise Flight.
“He’ll be in some nice company,” Cathy said.
She said Aaron’s unusual sendoff has been reassuring for his young son, who gets to see his father accomplish one last heroic feat.
“The way we look at it is, at any given time, he can just look up to the heavens and know his dad is up there, flying around keeping an eye on him,” she said.
She said making preparations for the launch has kept her busy during a difficult period of grief.
“This spaceflight, it’s keeping me grounded,” she said. “No pun intended.”