Under the Same Moon

When the moon is full, our hearts are whole.

Dear reader,

On this special night of the year - when the moon is at its fullest and brightest, is your heart whole?

Under this beautiful moonlight, with trembling hands and deepest longing, I am writing this letter to my beloved son.

My precious boy, my love,

The moon tonight is full - round, radiant, impossibly perfect, suspended in a velvet sky that feels both infinite and unbearably close.

It’s Mid-Autumn Festival again. The Mooncake Festival. The one tradition from my childhood that I still kept alive here in America. Growing up in Asia, it was a night of love, light and togetherness. Families and loved ones gathered under the moon to share mooncakes, stories, and laughters. My mom would say, “When the moon is full, our hearts are whole. We and our loved ones are looking at the same moon, regardless the distance separating us.”

You, my boy, you were born under this sky, in this country so far from my own. Yet this holiday became ours - our little bridge between generations, between worlds. We would celebrate it every year with mooncakes and tea, sharing stories and moon-gazing. I taught you the legends - the moon Goddess Chang’e drinking the elixir to protect her husband and flying to the moon, the heartbroken HouYi displaying her favorite fruits and cakes to convey his longing for her. You’d listen with wide eyes, the light tracing the edges of your face. “Do you think she’s lonely up there, Mama?” you once asked me. I told you no. I said the moon keeps our loved ones close. That as long as we look up, we’re never truly apart.

But tonight, this sacred night, brings the ache to its sharpest edge. The moon still rises, bright and whole - but I, my love, am not. In the fullness of the moon, I feel the hollowness in my chest. I set up the table, just like always - but this year there is an empty chair, an empty plate where you should be. I hold the warm teacup in my hands and close my eyes. I see your radiant smile, your curious eyes; my heart aches for your boundless life that ended far too soon.

Tomorrow, it will be nine months since your passing. Nine months since I last held you in my arms, warm, real and alive. They say that time heals. That the pain will soften. That grief is a tide that recedes. But none is true. This isn’t a tide. It’s a wound that stays open. It’s raw. Still bleeding, still burning. And this festival - this night of reunion - only makes your absence heavier, and the ache of my longing deeper.

After dinner, we brought your favorite mooncake - the red bean with lotus seed paste - to your gravesite. The air was cool and tender. We placed the mooncake beside your name and whispered our love into the wind. The trees nearby stirred softly, their leaves murmuring in the breeze. The world transformed into a serene haven.

The moon continues to rise. Basking in its radiance, I feel your love wrapped around me. I know beyond this shimmering sky, you see the same light as I see. Maybe the moon is the bridge between our worlds, like the love that forever ties my heart to yours. I start to realize that the fullness does not mean absence of pain, it means holding love and grief together in one trembling heart. I will sit beneath this moonlight and let it pour over me, washing away the edges of despair until all that remains is love - pure, fierce, enduring.

So my precious child, my sweet boy, please look up at the same moon. Know that Mama’s love still reaches you, crossing the vastness between heaven and earth.

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival, my love.

Until the day we meet again in His light, I will keep looking up. I will keep loving you in every phase of the moon, in every breath, in every prayer.

Forever yours,

Mama