Just Write: White moon rising

If you've ever found yourself on the brink or in the depths of a dark season, it can seem like a long, gradual descent into a cave.  You may think you packed enough for the journey, but further in, realize you didn't bring enough layers or sturdy enough boots, batteries or kerosene, snacks or sustenance, for the conditions of cave dwelling.  You stumble along, eyes growing dim, until you reach a cave wall and your legs are too weak to turn around, so you sit for awhile in damp stillness.  If you've ever been here, where you call out and tire of your own voice reverberating back from piles of rock; where your eyes fail to see the light in your hands and your whole body aches from the journey; then you know.  You know how far below ground, how far from the light of the sun, it can seem in the heart of a cave.

How the cave can render you speechless.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Her voice calls to me, "Auntie Ber-Ber, will you tuck me in?"  I follow her to her room, where she snuggles into her pink princess bed, introducing me to her friends - Lovey and Bruno and Brownie - offering kisses and hugs through plush arms and sewn mouths.  I read her stories, but really, it's I who sits captivated as stories spill from four-year old lips.  

"You see that dog over there?" she points to the stuffed Schnauzer in a pile of animals.  "That's from the woman who wore the white hair today, the one at our house for Thanksgiving."  Her great-grandma, now in her ninth decade of life, my Papa's mama who has buried two of her boys, a husband and a granddaughter.  I smile deep in delight at this description, as only a child can give, and follow where her thoughts take her.

"I'll tell you one last story," she says, when I tell her reluctantly that I need to go so she can sleep,  "But, it's a real one."  She briefly closes long lashes over her eyes and brushes wisps of brown silk from her face.

"Once upon a time... there was Gramy and you and Rocardo, but," she whispers, "He wasn't Uncle Rocardo yet.  And the day came when you moved out of Gramy's house and went to your wedding and Gramy went back home to live by herself, and she was all alone, except for memories of me, when I come to visit her in the summer and she's happy.  And you and Uncle Rocardo and Gramy all moved into our house, and we were all sisters, and we lived happily ever after..."

I watch her face, mesmerized by purity and innocence and imagination, and my own isn't wide enough to contain this smile, and my heart isn't deep enough to hold this moment. 

Since when did real stories cease to begin with "Once upon a time" and end with "happily ever after?"  I can't even remember, but how hard it is to remain like a child.  She kisses my lips and I smell her hair, and we pray holding hands and stuffed animal paws, and I wish that she could stay here, in a world without caves.

"Jesus, please heal Auntie Ber-Ber's leg," her prayers interrupt my thoughts.  And I feel him kneeling on the floor beside me, wrapping me up in the faith of a child.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I'm on the bus, skimming over the top of the lake on a trail of concrete, and I crank my neck to see Mt. Rainier behind me, like a vision of snow jutting from the water in a haze of pink sky. 

I step off the bus and take the long way home.  Trekking uphill in a trail of soggy leaves, inhaling cold breaths, above lake and highway, away from the city.  My dimmed eyes catch the glory of Christmas lights looped outside on bushes and roofs, of trees no longer ablaze yet still adorned with the fading gold of late autumn, of the bone white moon in its pre-evening ascent.  

Photo credit

My leg grows stronger on these walks and my heart beats warm, alive, beneath layers of skin and bone and jacket, with each step shedding ounces of heaviness.   

I am on the brink, a white moon rising from the depths.  And I whisper thanks to God that, even come the dark of night, there is still illumination.  My voice is freed, and still I stand and peer out in speechless wonder.

*Linking up with the oh-so-talented Heather King and the delightful crew of Just Write-ers