As the age of 5, I remember being woken from my sleep to see a lunar eclipse one summer night. I remember being with my aunts and cousins in the early morning hours, admiring what I thought at the time was a once in a lifetime experience, a miracle. I felt so small standing in that place of overwhelming beauty and greatness; nothing else existed in that moment – everything was calm, peaceful, and was like the world and everyone in it existed for that one moment in this collective experience of the unimaginable.
Little did I know at that time that the moon would continue to follow me through-out my life.
When I was in high school, two of my close friends’ parents passed away. I was just a teenager, and I had so many questions and deep raw emotions that took time to process; more time than I could have ever really imagined, and something from that intense period has stayed with me.
Both of these friends were and are still very close to me, and we will forever share a special and unique friendship. We shared so many pivotal moments and memories – growing up together, a lot of firsts together – most we will keep to ourselves as typical best friends would, first kisses, first break in curfews – first heart breaks. The first of hard, heavy stuff that lives with you and connects you forever.
For one of my friends whose mother passed, we were in second grade together and since then, were inseparable through high school. Her family took me in as their own. I went on their family vacations, day trips, Sebago Maine, skiing, soccer carpools, cancer, grandparents passing, saturday breakfasts, movie night, charades, school plays – a lot of memorable time spent together.
I remember the night she told us her mom was sick, we were going to a high school hockey game. It was a time of innocence, joy, silliness, and this news seemed unimaginable. We were just starting our lives it seemed, and this was not something that we could fully understand to be possible. At least, not in the carefree world we were living at that time. Time moved quickly from the day we heard the heartbreaking news to the day her mother passed six months later. A day that I will never forget. It was summer, our junior year. We had been spending time at the house. We knew her mother was dying. We had been at the house the past few days trying to be close. That night my friend’s father encouraged us to leave the house. Someone was having a party and I encouraged my friend to go. She was a bit unsure if she should leave her mother and father alone. Her sister went out for the night was well with some college friends. That night, after getting home from the party, she called me and told me her mother had passed. I didn’t believe her. I was in shock – I didn’t understand this was happening. This was the first person I had known that had died. My friend missed her mother’s final moments and was with me instead. I carried this guilt for a long time. Guilt I had put onto myself. My friend assured me it was what was meant to be. Her father was there, with the love of his life, and with her for her last breath.
My parents were not home that night. I didn’t have a car and needed to see my friend – to hug her, tell her how sorry I was for encouraging her go out with me, for not being a better friend, for not seeing this or knowing the hurt it will bring for her, her sister and her father. I started to run – run to her house which was about a 20-minute drive. I was crying and running and was not going to make it to my friend’s house. I stopped at another friend’s house, told her the news and she drove me. I got there while they were waiting for the funeral home to pick up her body. My friend and I went upstairs in her room and watched as her father walked out with the undertaker and watched as he said his last good-bye and put his wife in the car.
I still have flashes of that summer that are burned into my memory but one of them stands out more than the rest. It was one night shortly after my friend’s mother passed. I was at her house and leaving to go home. I felt so empty, so helpless, so confused – I felt everything. My friend lived on a steep hill in the town heights. It was a warm summer night and I remember just crying in my car. I worried about my friend and how her family would survive. I felt hopeless. I recall looking up and seeing the moon. It was massive. It felt as if was going to swallow me whole it was so powerful and bright. As I became present in that moment, my eyes opened, and I saw a face. It was a women’s face in the moon. A familiar face. I saw the face of my friend’s mother – the face resembled hers so closely, especially at the end. Tears ran down my face, and at that moment, I felt a wave of comfort come over me – I felt the presence of my friend’s mother in the moon, there, sending us light and comfort, softly watching over us. From that moment on, she became my woman in the moon.
Since that day, I never looked at the moon again the same. It had something so strong that drew me to it, an emotion and feeling that continued to remind me of loss but of strength and a reminder that there was something bigger out there I was so small in comparison to it. Somehow, there was deeper and bigger meaning, and I was given this gift to understand and know that; even if that feeling was sometimes fleeting. The moon continues to remind me of the bigger world, that there is a larger purpose. Something more than a moment in time; something I know that has been before me and will continue on after me.
Here are my experiences – my living moment stories – where I continue to discover, to be found, to be reminded of what is possible, to be free, to come home…