The first time I ever saw a crescent moon that felt cold was when I was seven years old.
It wasn’t just the kind of cold you feel on your skin.
I felt it deep in my bones.
That thin crescent became the first painful memory of my childhood.
Its weak light fell across my tear-stained face. The moonlight was pale, faint, and strangely cold.
I was only seven then, a little girl in a short red padded jacket.
I wore a blue cloth hat covered with tiny flowers.
My mother had made it for me herself.
Even after all these years, I can still remember exactly what I looked like that night.
I was standing alone by the doorway of our old house, leaning against the doorframe and staring at the crescent moon.
Inside, the house smelled of medicine and smoke.
My mother was crying.
My father was lying sick in bed, barely moving.
No one had time for me.
No one called me inside.
No one remembered to make me dinner.
Even at seven, I understood that something terrible had happened to our family.
Everyone was worried about my father.
Everyone was afraid that he might not make it.
But what hurt me most wasn’t the sadness filling the house.
It was the feeling that I was completely alone.
I was cold.
I was hungry.
My stomach kept growling, but there was no one to hear it.
In that big old house, no one seemed to notice that I was still standing outside.
So I stayed there.
I didn’t move.
I stood on the steps and watched the crescent moon slowly sink lower and lower.
Eventually, it disappeared into the darkness.
The night became completely black.
There was no moonlight anymore.
I couldn’t hold it in any longer.
I started crying softly.
But my little sobs were soon drowned out by my mother’s cries from inside.
Then I realized something was wrong.
My father wasn’t moving anymore.
A white cloth had been placed over his face.
I wanted to reach out and pull it away.
I wanted to see my father one last time.
But I was afraid.
I was too young to understand death, yet somehow I knew that something had changed forever.
So I didn’t touch the cloth.
The little room suddenly felt impossibly small.
It was as if my father’s absence had filled every corner of it.
The air felt heavy.
I could hardly breathe.
My mother changed into white mourning clothes.
Someone put a loose white robe over my red jacket.
I kept pulling at the loose threads along the edge of the robe without even realizing it.
That tiny habit stayed with me for years.
Soon, the house was packed with people.
Neighbors came rushing in.
People were talking, crying, moving things around, telling each other what to do.
The whole place was noisy and chaotic.
Everyone seemed heartbroken.
But when I think about it now, my father’s funeral was painfully simple.
There was almost nothing to it.
In the end, my father was placed inside a thin wooden coffin.
It was crude and poorly made, nothing more than a few thin boards nailed together.
There were gaps between the boards.
Five or six neighbors lifted the coffin onto their shoulders.
My mother and I followed behind them.
We cried as we walked.
I still remember that wooden coffin.
I remember it more clearly than almost anything else from that night.
It was so simple.
So fragile.
And yet, to me, it felt like that little wooden box had brought my father’s entire life to an end.
It also brought our old life to an end.
From that day on, whenever I thought about my father, a strange thought would come into my mind.
Some part of me believed that if I could only open that coffin, I would see him again.
I knew it was impossible.
I knew exactly where they had buried him, somewhere outside the city.
I knew the place was still there.
But knowing where my father was buried didn’t mean I could find him again.
He was gone.
Like a drop of rain falling into the earth, he had disappeared almost instantly.
And no matter how many years passed, I could never bring him back.