Look! It’s a fingernail moon!

Little Thomas was barely more than a toddler when he pointed to the night sky and proclaimed the waxing (or maybe it was waning) moon looked like a fingernail.

We were driving at the time (pre-cell-phone days), and I couldn’t wait to get home to call Mom. Her first grandchild had a poet’s heart.

Mom absolutely loved the moon. She was fascinated by the changing sizes, shapes, and colors of the moon. Harvest moon, crescent moon, the Man in the Moon, Goodnight Moon.

Mom would go outside after dark to gaze at the moon. When it was too cold, she’s walk from window to window inside the house until she found her old friend.

She wrote about the moon:

Travelogue

Tonight the full moon breaks into little stars
behind the leaves
I hear an owl
and walk to the far window
to find him

Before the dawn tomorrow
the whole moon will be by our bedroom
reassembled like a puzzle
only to thin again in the early nights
ardently scientific impeccably mysterious
~ joan vayo, 29 August 2004

Long ago, when Mom and Dad were teenagers and – dare I say – mooning over each other, Mom’s moon barrette disappeared.

It remained missing for nearly six decades.

It turns out, Dad had it all that time. He wanted a keepsake to treasure.

And treasure it he did.

As their 50th wedding anniversary approached, Dad stopped by a local jewelry store. He chose Michaels Jewelers, remembering how, 60 years earlier as a teen in New Haven, he’d seen a beautiful bracelet at the Michaels on Chapel Street. As much as he wanted to buy that bracelet for his sweetheart, he couldn’t afford it. He asked the clerk: “If I ever have enough money and that bracelet is gone, would you make one for me?”

This time it was the Michaels Jewelers in Guilford and the year was 2002. Dad asked if they could customize a gold pin. A gold pin in the shape of a crescent moon. With 50 diamonds.

The answer was yes.

Two years later, Mom asked to have this inscription added: Now Then Always Joan and Hap 2004

Anniversary

The moon is high
the night house promises new gingerbread
its whipped cream chilling
in the silver bowl

The man I love puts clappers
back on bells
we hear them tolling in the dark
when wind is testing
and we sit back with warm gingerbread
to listen
~ joan vayo March 24, 2003

Dad’s 90th birthday is this Thursday, May 28. We’d planned to be with him to celebrate, but this darn coronavirus thing has us postponing the trip for now. And so his children and grandchildren mail packages and cards. We plan video calls.

Knowing how you and Mom enjoyed Frank Sinatra’s crooning, Dad, here’s an early birthday gift for you from John, Aubrie, and Cameron:

Mom’s been gone for half a year now. As we ponder what heaven is or isn’t, I can’t help but think it’s just out of reach, on the other side of that fingernail moon.

“Travelogue” ©2004 Joan C. Vayo. All rights reserved.
“Anniversary” ©2003 Joan C. Vayo. All rights reserved.

“Fingernail Moon” photo courtesy Akbar Nemati from FreeImages

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