Like a full moon, son’s love shines bright

It was a full moon. Impossibly big and blindingly bright, hanging just over the horizon as I drove my car up the hill. The thing filled the windshield of my car.

For a moment it felt as if I could – without veering, without doing anything but keeping my hands on the wheel – drive straight ahead, shake off gravity and shoot across the sky until I buried my wheels in the soft dust.

Oh, if only.

But the moon isn’t that easy to catch. Objects in the sky aren’t as close as they appear.

When my son was a little boy, he loved to play on the swing set in the backyard. He would push harder, pumping his sturdy little body, and go higher with each swing.

“Look at me, Mama,” he would say. “Look at how high I can go.”

I couldn’t help myself. I would hover. I would tell him to be careful, to keep his grip on the chains and not fall off.

“I’m going to go so high I can take a bite out of the moon,” he would say with bravado, pointing to the faint sliver of the moon still visible in the afternoon sky. “I’m going to eat it up.”

I loved the idea of a boy so confident, so eager for adventure that he could dream about capturing and devouring the moon. But I didn’t let on.

“Oh, no.” I would cry. “Don’t eat the moon. What will shine in my window at night?”

“I will shine in your window,” he would say, delighted with the game. “I will shine for you.”

Of course, the little boy grew up. And he figured out that no one ever got to the moon from a swing set. The sturdy little toddler grew into a young man so tall I have to look up at him. He learned to keep his feet firmly on the ground.

The other evening, the night after I’d imagined driving straight into the sky, I stood in the driveway, talking to my son, enjoying his company for a few more minutes before he got away. I knew it could be days before he dropped by again.

When he reached down to give me a hug before he left – I’d run out of ways to stall and keep him with me for just a few minutes longer – I wrapped my arms around him and held him close. There, just over his shoulder, was the moon rising over the horizon. Waning, not quite as full as the night before, it was still so big it made you catch your breath. But it had nothing on my son.

Watching him drive away, waving until he was out of sight, I turned my back on the night sky.

My boy will always shine brightest for me.