Every day, my mother worked washing clothes for other people.
She worked from morning until late at night.
I always wanted to help her.
But I was too young to do much.
The only thing I could do was stay beside her.
No matter how late it got, I refused to go to bed before she finished all the washing.
Many nights, the crescent moon had already climbed into the sky while my mother was still bent over the washbasin, scrubbing clothes.
She was exhausted.
Her breathing became heavy, and every now and then she let out a low groan.
But she never stopped.
The dirtiest things she had to wash were usually socks.
Most of them came from shop workers around the neighborhood.
They were filthy and stiff, almost as hard as dried leather.
After washing those awful socks, my mother would often feel sick.
Sometimes the smell was so bad that she couldn’t even eat afterward.
I would sit quietly beside her.
I couldn’t make the work any easier.
So I simply stayed there.
Sometimes I looked up at the crescent moon.
A few bats would fly back and forth beneath its faint light.
They moved so quickly that they seemed to flash across the moonlight for only a second before disappearing into the darkness.
I felt sorry for my mother.
She worked so hard every day, yet there was never enough money.
Watching her suffer made me love that crescent moon even more.
Whenever I looked up and saw it hanging quietly in the sky, the sadness inside me seemed to ease a little.
Summer was when I loved the crescent moon most.
It seemed to carry a coolness of its own.
Like a thin sheet of ice floating gently across the night sky.
I loved the soft light it spread over the ground.
It wasn’t bright.
It was hazy and gentle, almost like a dream.
But the light never lasted long.
Before I knew it, the faint glow on the ground would disappear.
Then the night would become darker than ever.
And the darker the sky became, the brighter the stars seemed.
The flowers and grass along the street would also begin to release their fragrance.
Our neighbor’s yard was filled with flowers and trees.
Outside their wall stood a tall locust tree.
Whenever the wind blew, white flowers would fall from its branches.
They drifted into our yard one after another.
By morning, the ground was covered with them.
They looked like a thin layer of snow beneath the moonlight.