Companion of the Moon

Awake tonight with loneliness,
I cannot keep myself
from longing
for the handsome moon.

Ono no Komachi
From The Ink Dark Moon

Four years ago this week past, my dear gammy passed away. My mother's mother, she grew up along the northeastern shore of our fair Isle. Her father, who had crossed no man's land in WW1 and survived to tell the tale, fathered her and eleven siblings. For many years he and his skilled and hardworking wife, manned the Naufrage lighthouse, a beacon for sailors on ink dark nights upon the sea.
Gammy, Maud Cecelia by name, lived all her early years before electric light found its way to their small cape. And so the moon became her friend, like eons of generations before her, Celts and French and Mi'kmaq peoples found their way by light of moon across hill and dale and frozen fields of wintertime.

About two years before she herself died, my grandmother's beloved older sister Helen took sick at home in New Annan. Helen's girls kept watch, a bedside vigil of light and tears, of memories and songs. When her last breath was drawn, the girls gathered their composure and took their mother
on one last moonlit sojourn across the yard, "Mom always loved the moon so much, we had to love the moon with her one last time." was their practical explanation. I recall my grandmother feeling so lost when Helen died, the sister she walked so many moonlit nights of their girlhood across hill and dale and over frozen fields in wintertime.

One overnight at my grandmother's house many bright moons ago when I was in my own girlhood years, we were standing at the east window looking up the hill towards Naufrage and I told her how the moon frightened me. She drew a breath, almost aghast, as though I'd committed some sort of sacrilege through my admittance.  Perhaps I had.

"Oh no, no, do not ever be afraid of the moon. It is your friend in bleak midwinter, it's handsome beauty will never let you down. Love the moon and you will have a bright companion your whole days through!"

 In hindsight I think the moon made me feel lonely, aware of my own smallness in a world so large and wild. Nonetheless, thanks to my dear gammy, I've learned to make friends with my bleak and lonesome thoughts, and in befriending them the ache they bring is, if not always welcome, at least familiar!
I do still miss my grandmother, her gentle ways, her kindness and hard won wisdom.

How wonderful it would have been had she died at home to have carried my grandmother too out across her yard  for one last time beneath the guiding light of the moon. In my solace, I carry her delight upon my own heart on moonlit nights!

Jill