Shine On

by Donna Poole

What captures the souls of poets and lovers but makes policeman and prison guards apprehensive? You probably know; it’s the full moon.

I especially love the Harvest and Hunter’s moons of September and October when the moon rises huge and orange and makes me feel nostalgic and bittersweet. Those moons strum a forgotten cord and sing of my dozens of heartbreaking goodbyes and of thousands, millions of eternal hellos.

My love, my John is not poetic; he expresses his feelings more by tucking me in every night and pulling the covers up under my chin than he does by quoting sonnets, and in this, the winter of our lives, I’ve come to much prefer being tucked in. But even he notices the moon; he can’t help it. It’s because our oldest daughter, Angie, has loved the moon since she was very small. And she made sure we noticed it too.

An astronomer might tell you Monday’s full moon was a micromoon, the smallest we’ll see this year and is named the Wolf Moon; a poet might sing of its splendor; but Angie can tell you more. She’s known it since she was a toddler.

“Mommy, do you think we’ll see Ralph tonight?”

I searched my memory. Still in my twenties, forgetfulness didn’t plague me as it does now, and I was sure no Ralph shared our lives.

“Honey, we don’t know anyone named Ralph.”

“Yes, we do! Ralph Moon!”

“Oh! So, you think the moon’s name is Ralph?”

“It is his name. He told me so.”

I looked to see if Angie was lying. I could always tell because she pushed her tongue into her cheek and averted her eyes. Talk about a “tell” coming in handy for a first time Mom! She would have made a terrible player had there been a Toddler Poker’s Convention.

She wasn’t lying. She really thought the moon had said his name was Ralph, so Ralph it must be.

We had many conversations about Ralph in years to come. Sometimes Angie said he was “fingernail Ralph.” When he was full, she said Ralph was smiling at her. I doubt Angie still calls the moon Ralph, now that she’s pushing fifty, but her dad and I still do.

Statistics say we’ve raised four children, but wisdom tells us those four children also raised us. The wise ones among us say our artists, poets, and photographers help us see. I add children to that list. They show us things we’d otherwise miss on our backroad ramblings.

Listen to any child and sooner or later you will find yourself in the position of humble student. When our youngest daughter, Kimmee, was a toddler she was surprised I couldn’t see the angel at the top of our stairs, so real and visible to her. I thought of Matthew 18:10: “Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.”

Kimmee smiled and waved at her angel and went back to her toys as though there were no barrier between that world and this, and for just a minute, the wall was down for me too. I stared at the place where she’d seen her angel. I saw nothing, but I saw more than I’d seen in a long time.

Years ago, when our Dan and Mindy’s children were very young, we took Macy and Reece to Walmart and gave them each a dollar. Their eyes grew huge at such a vast sum. We told them it wouldn’t buy much, but it would buy a matchbox car or a puzzle.

Reece folded his money carefully like the treasure it was to him, put it into his little pocket, and talked fast and furious about the matchbox cars he wanted to look at. Macy held hers in her hand; she already knew exactly what she wanted. She pulled my hand and hurried me to the back of the store. Electronics. My heart sank. Even back then I knew what a dollar would buy in electronics, exactly nothing.

“Look, Grandma, I want that!” she pointed at a tablet that cost well over a hundred dollars.

“Oh, Macy honey. You only have one dollar, and that costs more than one-hundred dollars.”

“Uh huh!” She nodded, face happy and expectant. We realized she had no conception of money. She had a whole dollar, and she’d picked out what she wanted to buy.  

Reece pulled his treasured dollar out of his pocket, dreams of matchbox cars overshadowed by a more powerful emotion, and held it out to me.

“Here, Grandma Donna! Macy can have my dollar too! Now you have enough money to buy it for her.”

I almost sobbed right there in electronics, not because we couldn’t get Macy the tablet, but because of a little boy’s unselfish, giving love. Those two small children were far from spoiled and accepted graciously the denial of the tablet. I don’t remember now what they did buy, but each was happy with a small gift, and this grandma treasured all these things in her heart.  

Shine on, Ralph moon. Shine on, children who see angels. Shine on, little boys who will gladly give their last dollar for love. You make this world a brighter, more beautiful place for the rest of us. We need all the light we can get as we keep walking each other Home.