Finding Love in Moonlight

What follows is fiction. This is not about anybody. Don't make any such assumptions, because you would be grievously mistaken...

I first saw you on the first of December. You were the moon, gently reflecting the light of the sun, bringing his light to my cold and empty night. Daylight is too bright for a sinner like me, too much of his revealing light shining in every crevice of my lies. You brought his light in slowly, waxing first from a mere sliver, giving me time to adjust to what I was beginning to see. At first I mistook you for a star, a twinkling angel in the firmament of my twilight, a bit of dazzle to distract me from the vast dark expanse of my vision. As the nights wore on, you shone more brightly, more fully, until at last I could not help but realize that you were no star, but a reflection of our star, the one true sun that lights our lands. So, you were the moon, and in your fullness, at your brightest, I saw only the light of the sun and learned therein that the day was not my enemy but rather my home. Funny, how at your brightest, I saw more clearly your flaws, your craters, which cast the only shadows in his light upon your face. Yet far from despising you, I loved you more, both for the individuality of those "flaws" and for the courage to allow his light to reveal them to everyone. For you cared only for the truth, for bringing a bit of the sun's light to those of us who crawl around in the night, covered in mud and slime, fearful of the heat of day. Men like me, who lived more like worms than men, until one night we might by chance look up from our blind writhing to see you there, smiling down at us. What I did not realize at the time, what I could not have understood at the time, was that I only saw your smile because of his light. Everything that I came to see, everything that I came to love, starting with my love for you, was only possible because of the sun's light. Without sunlight I would never have seen more than shadows, without the reflected sunlight on your face, I would never have known the beginnings of beauty. Though I now walk in the day, under the fullness of the sun's life-giving light, I cannot look upon his beauty directly. I still must see it reflected, his light bouncing from every created thing on this earth to bring joy and wonder and delight to my newly-opened eyes.

Sometimes, I miss you. I miss our long walks under the night sky, back when the only light I knew was what you reflected. I miss our animated discussions, our silly jokes, the enchanting sound of your voice: your singing, your laughing, your soft whsipers of love and hope. I miss you, and the missing hurts like a lost child. Without the moon, they say there is no life on earth. Yet, I still live. I live, and I am grateful... grateful that you brought light into my life, gave me the courage and the hunger to enter the daylight, to live as a human creature should live. You were the moon, and you gave me my first taste of real light, which led to real life and real love. It is too late to say everything I want to say, and that merely is what it is. But it is never too late to look up into the sky and whisper, "thank you." And so I say, "thank you."