The Gift

Journal Entry: January 28, 2010

"Last night was one of the most beautiful nights I've ever experienced. I'm at a hotel in Wickenburg, Arizona. It's not fair to call it a hotel. Sixty years of running a ranch, home, a family. The people here are sweet. They're kind and unassuming. The rooms are little bungalows, not too fancy, but comfortable and very "Arizona." There's a calm, a peacefulness here that is soothing to my soul. A reminder that I come from a simpler place. That life is meant, for me at least, to run at a different pace. I've become a product of my environment but I'm being drawn back to my roots; not family roots but spiritual roots. Sitting here writing, looking out over the expanse of the beautiful Arizona desert, the mountains on the horizon, I feel it calling to me. I can't remember ever feeling this before. My mind strays continually to last night.

I walked outside after dinner to be struck by the sight of the evening sky. I was in awe. I was looking at the sky as much as I was looking at the road as I made my way back to my room. I pulled the comforter off the bed and laid on the patio lounge. I stared at the moon. It was full. Watching the clouds, I whispered my question to the universe, "Mary, where are you? You can't be gone. I miss you so much. I can still feel you." Tears streaming, I watched the clouds dance across the face of the moon. The dark from the night sky played with the bright light of the moon, reflecting off the clouds.

It started as an absence of clouds, like someone had taken their finger and ran it first one way and then another; across and then down. Almost the shape of a cross but the clouds filled in some areas and left others dark. The shape of a woman formed. It was as if the woman was dancing, looking up, with her arms flung wide in abandonment and joy. Her hair was streaming around her and her face was wise, serene, like she had all the answers in the universe and was marvelling and celebrating them. I watched as the image became more and more clear. I watched it float across the moon; a fluid, graceful, ancient, female spirit.

I was distracted for a moment and looked away. When I looked back at the sky, there wasn't a cloud in sight. The night was pitch black with only the moon in a blanket of dark velvet."

Every time I look at the full moon, I think of Mary. I miss you and love you, my friend. Thank you for the gift of the moon.