Goodbye Moon

Goodbye Moon.

As I stood in the doorway, dust particles floated in the air about me, I asked the silence “Does darkness fear the light?” That was the question that my father used to tell me as a child. He did not ask as I now do, for his style was to say questions expecting an answer not. To answer meant receiving a lashing from the leather about his plump waist. “Does darkness fear the light?” I’ve asked myself this every day for the last seven months; I think it must. I watched one particularly large piece of matter as it floated from the top of a lamp to the floor beside me. Its impact not enough even to disturb the dirt that has accumulated for many years. My father, God rest his soul, didn’t believe in a man doing a “woman’s work.” How he ever managed to live as long as he did I will never know.

Darkness fears the light as light fears the dark. As morning breaks and shuns night away things are born anew, darkness loses its grasp on being the almighty absence. But, as darkness engulfs the last rays of sun at dusk, light loses its power to illuminate all things beautiful.

I am just a man, one who doesn’t have much more than this pen and paper, and now an empty house where a father let darkness take away all that he was. I stepped from the place where the dust fell from the lamp, and crossed the dirt riddled floor to the bedroom. Immediate calm rushed through my body. I stepped through the doorway and transfixed my gaze upon the bed where my father spent his nights. An impression where he used to lay still obvious on the bed, even after so many months of being untouched.

Something about the way the mattress was positioned drew my attention. I walked to the bed. From beneath a corner of the pillow I saw the corner of a book that Father used to read to me as a child. I took it from its place. “Goodnight Moon” I said to the silence filling the room; my voice echoed off the walls. I opened to the first page and a small piece of parchment fell out. I put the book down and looked at the paper and immediately recognized the handwriting of my father

“Son, I am certain you will be the one to search my house once the news of my passing spreads. Know that I did not leave in pain. I left from love. The love I had for you, my son, was stronger than even the love a baby has for its mother’s milk. I know I didn’t do all I could to raise you into the best man you could be, but if you remember I always asked the question ‘Does darkness fear the light?’ I never really understood why I asked that until now. Darkness cannot fear the light as the darkness is only a thing made up by man, but man does fear both darkness and light. I, my son am terrified. I see the light of day and the joy that should come with it does not. I see the darkness of night and the sleep that should accompany it fails to come. I simply lie upon my bed and see only your face. Nothing keeps me going more than seeing you, knowing that you are so much like me. Please do not follow in my steps my boy. You deserve the kind of happiness that comes with each new day.”

There was no more writing on the page, no signature or anything. I flipped through the rest of “Goodnight Moon” to see if my father had another part to the note hidden in the book. Nothing. I slumped to the floor and looked at the toes of my shoes. Death is supposed to make one sad. Death is supposed to show us that we are humans that are compassionate, that we are better than all other creatures on this planet. Yet I feel none of these things, and I would feel very safe in saying that my father felt none of these either when he took his own life. “Coward,” I muttered. But that wasn’t quite right. Taking one’s own life is no easy feat. In my eighteen years I’ve not known one person to succeed in the task. I stood from the floor and walked over to the window. Months of mildew growth lined the frame of the window. I wiped at it casually with my index finger leaving a clean streak about four inches long.

Rays of sunlight shone through the glass, and illuminated the corner of the desk across the room where stacks of books were neatly piled. Father did love to read. I walked to pick one up and saw another note in the middle of the table. The pen, still where it was originally dropped.

“I’m done with the darkness, and I am done with the light. Nothing is the only thing I’ve never truly grasped, though some would say it is all I’ve truly ever known. Once a life ends, there is no more, there is nothing. I am going to finally experience nothing. I don’t want anybody to feel sorrow for me for it is not sorrow that is needed. Less of everything and more of less is the true place to find living solace. Son, you know the answer to the question and the question needs answered. ‘Does darkness fear the light?’

Goodbye Moon.”

There were no other notes. My father didn’t even sign his name. Rage soared over me. It wasn’t until I read the words “Goodbye Moon” that I really understood what goodbye meant. I took the two notes from my father and exited the house. I turned back and looked at the falling down wood siding along the face of the building. The rage I felt inside abandoned me and instead was replaced by tears. I waited seven months, after the police showed up on my doorstep informing me that my father killed himself, to search my father’s home. His life ended on what would have been the eighteenth anniversary of my mother’s death, also my birthday. “Moon” he called her. From the stories he told there was no greater person, and I think he sometimes hated me for being conceived because had I not been she would still be here, as would he. Blame anybody I cannot, even myself, but also, I cannot help but feel guilt.

Life is definitely about finding the place where you are happy with what you have. The line from my father was almost perfect, “Less of everything and more of less is the true place to find living solace.” If I were to change any one thing, I would remove the word living, but my father knew his demise loomed near, so I do not fault him for his use of words. I only hope that whoever finds my letter knows that I am very much the same man that my father was. “Does darkness fear the light?” Only when the darkness is a cloud constantly circling in a mind obscuring all beauty that only light knows.

Goodbye Moon.