Full Moon

Flash Fiction

Full Moon

“The moon is full tonight.”

I say it out loud although there’s no one else around. No one else in my apartment actually, I live alone. It wasn’t always that way, I had many, many years living with my husband, and my kids.

My kids are grown now, with kids of their own. I get a kick out of them acting all ‘grown up, as if they always were. However, I remember both of them being as little as their kids are now. They are wonderfully happy, but often worried, and serious, because they don’t remember they were exactly like their kids, when they were their age. I remember all the changes as they grew, so I don’t butt in. I probably thought the same way when I was raising them.

My husband actually grew up in a house his father built. Working a fulltime job and using all his spare time on that house. They had a one-year-old daughter then, and another child on the way. My husband was that other child. They moved in just before he was born. I doubt it ever occurred to him that he would spend his whole life right there in that wonderful house.

And yet, I eventually had to let it go. The kids all settled in places and lives of their own. My husband, now gone for years. I know he wouldn’t have expected me to stay in that huge, memory filled house all by myself. Though I loved the house, and the yard, everything… it was too much. All the really important things had homes in my heart, and the hearts of our kids.

But some nights, I remember it all. Especially the nights when the moon is full. Like that night when the love of my life passed away.