My moon child....

Just finished feeding my daughter brunch.  She is now happily drawing and writing in a journal and I am typing away some of my anxiety.  This evening is my daughter's Prom.  It is her first.  She is the youngest of my three children.  I sat here actually realizing that she will be 17 this summer.  Wow!  Really, where did it go?

I remember so clearly she and her father and I walking on leafy tree lined streets, on a warm spring evening, the smell of lilacs heavy, as the moon sat full and high in the night sky: She was sitting upon his shoulders, while I strolled along side them, listening to them sing their little made up song about when the sun goes down, then the moon comes up..and hearing her infectious, delighted giggle and that baby voice pleading with her father to "sing it again Daddy, sing the moon song again".

The first picture I have of her as an infant is of her father holding her, both looking up toward the night sky..the light of the moon illuminating them.  She was 2 days old.  She was born in the middle of a heat wave one July and it was very warm in the house, as we did not have air conditioning.  We were all outside in the evening enjoying some cool relief from the heat of the day.  Her father was holding her, walking around the back yard, pointing out various flowers and bushes and explaining them to her.  Her eyes following him and watching him in seemingly serious concentration..:)  As he was walking around he brought her tiny body up towards his face.  With both faces turned upwards, both bathed in soft blueish light, he began his made up song of the moon for the first time.

This all came to my mind again as I was watching her last evening when she was sitting on the patio watching the "super moon" rise.  As she sat alone, I heard her ever so softly sing this song to herself, looking up at the bright night sky....I always sang to her, "You are my Sunshine", as she most certainly is, my sunshine. She liked it well enough, but it is the moon song that she chooses for herself.

This evening she will wear her first formal dress.  She will sparkle and dance under the moon...my baby is not a baby anymore.

But she shall always be my moon child...