26 years cancer-free and I’m still feeling over the moon

"I wasn't sure you would make it this month," I said to Mr. Moon as he slid into his parking spot outside my garden window.

"Did you think I would forget your special day?" he asked.

"It was a big month for you with the whole Harvest Moon, blood moon, super moon extravaganza. You made quite a splash. I figured you were exhausted."

"All in a night's work," he half-moon smiled at me as I put the kettle on for our tea.

"September is a pretty big month for you, too," he continued.

As he talked, I pictured the first time we had talked about my breast cancer, the night before my mastectomies, 26 years ago. Unable to sleep, I had wandered barefoot out onto the deck, to write in my journal.

"I'm scared," I whispered into the warm September night.

"That's natural," a soothing voice responded.

"What if this is my last night? Not in this rocker but on earth?"

It was dark on the deck. I hadn't turned the light on. But a sliver of crescent-shaped moon was peeking through the lemon tree and I realized, that, not only was I talking to it, we were actually having a conversation.

"I'm talking to the moon," I scribbled in my journal. "And he is answering me." Later, it occurred to me that, had I not made it and someone read the journal, I might have been remembered as the loony lady who talked to the moon. Not a bad legacy, actually.

But he was reassuring and logical, his point being that either way, on earth or elsewhere, I would be OK. He visited me twice during the ten days I was in the hospital, barely balancing on the thin window ledge outside my room. I suppose it is possible that I imagined it, but it doesn't matter. We've been pals ever since. And joyfully I've been here ever since. When the time comes for me to be elsewhere, I hope he will visit me there.

Thanks for the 26th anniversary visit, Mr. Moon, and I plan to take you up on your offer of a moon ride some day.

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