The Sun & The Moon

When I was just a little girl, maybe 5 or 6, there came a time where at night my father would leave around bedtime and would not return for days on end. So, on nights that he would leave my mother would tell me the same comforting bedtime story. Not only to ease my mind and help me drift off into a deep sleep, but also to help herself feel better with the current life events we were facing at that time during my parents’ separation. I remember the nights like they were yesterday where I was so fascinated with my mother’s story about how much the sun loved the moon, I would beg her to tell me her favorite story. Every night that our restlessness would arise I would ask her “Mommy, will you tell me how much the sun loved the moon before the sun comes back tomorrow”, and without hesitation she would smile and proceed to tell me the story.

There once was a moon of genuine beauty and a sun of fiery radiance. The moon was so beautiful that only the stars in galaxy could fathom her.

The sun was so luminous and burnt so bright that he could never catch a glance of her beauty. The stars would explain to the sun during every peak he would attempt that the moon was so luminous, but that she only showed her face during the skies transition into the murk of night.

She was out of reach, creating a security blanket surrounding herself with darkness. The sun would explain to the stars every night before last light that he would achieve the impossible to gaze upon the moon illuminating the nights sky with her beauty.

Years passed by, and finally one day when the sun arose out of the heavens, he was blessed with a glimpse of her raw beauty. As she began rising to the star’s horizon like a goddess, she was subtle, yet showing a rare side that was exposed by her light.

Struck by his good fortune he began to realize that while the sun could shine, he now knew that the moon could also glow.

Although they were a world apart, he wished to see her move for the brief seconds he divided with her at both dusk and dawn. That very orbit of the world completed had pushed the sun to fall in love as the starts drifted into the night.

Until one night the moon whispered to him. “Go” … her voice so pleasant, but mournful at the last ray of morning light. Flustered, the sun paused, and the moon continued to explain to him and the stars why he must go. “He must go so I can breathe. We carry a different fate, one where the sun shines to remove the dark of night during the day, and I cast a glow in the darkness of the night when he rests.”

During summer he would wait for her incase she changed her mind, but in his efforts the moon would look away. For months he waited, until one night before last light. Alone in her darkness, the moon gathered enough courage to say these last words to the sun “Do not forsake your blessing of light for my darkness.”

Days passed, and the sun followed her wish, but he could not remove her words as they were imprinted in his rays. He could feel her presence as the days passed to night and every night, he could even envision her beauty rising to the heavens.

As the days passed, he began to hope for one last glance at her beauty, so one night he waited. As she rose, he saw how much beauty she radiated into the night sky, and upon that last glance their destinies became clear. The sun must die and would die each night to let his true love breathe and shine, knowing it would bring an end to all her misery.

To this day “The Sun & The Moon” holds a significant amount of meaning to me and is one I hold close to my heart. I feel it can inspire a child’s imagination to find the beauty in life and to help them find an understanding to traumatic family separations. For myself, now that I am older, I realize that my mother would tell me this story without hesitation anytime I would ask because she realized that during that time in my life, she was my moon, and during the day my father was the sun. Every night in my mind the sun “died” (My Father would leave) so that the moon (My Mother) could live… Despite their differences and the conflicts during their separation they realized that both the sun and moon depended on one another to light the world they shared(myself). This is a story I currently share with my children during our hardships of divorce and all the changes they are encountering.