By the Light of the Moon

When Lulu our Chinese exchange student came to live with us, I asked him when his birthday was. He thought for a minute and then said he wasn't sure when it was this year, but he would check with his mom. And we said, "What? you don't know when your birthday is? " And he said, "No it's different every year." And so we learned about the Lunar calendar. Rather than marking the years by the 1st day of a month, a lunar calendar marks

the first day of a month as the day when an astronomical new moon occurs in a particular time zone.

Lulu's birthday varies from the beginning of August to the end of September and every year I ask him, "When is your birthday this year?"

My mother died at 4:38 am on the morning of the full moon in July...July 28th.

I like to say she was ushered into heaven on the coat tails of a full moon. When the full moon came around again on August 26th, I realized that with each full moon, I could mark her arrival into life eternal.

Though today is the solar calendar's two month anniversary of her Great Journey, I really marked it on September 24th as I walked down the driveway "by the light of the silvery moon!"