I see the moon

It's the Snow Moon. Tonight it surprised me as I dropped off the Girl at her father's. As we got out of the car, there it was, glowing round and orange just above the skyline.

"Look!" I whispered to her. "Do you see the moon?"

I have a memory from when I was her age. My grandmother and I had been to my great-aunt's house a block away. We walked home as the sun set, and as we reached the house, my mother was waiting for us out front. She took me in her arms and turned me around to face the eastern horizon.

"Look!" she said. "Look at the moon!"

I know what I remember is an impossibility, but here's what I see: The Moon, orange and round, hanging halfway above the horizon like a giant from some science-fiction novel. So big, it looked as though it was about to collide with the Earth. It stretched completely across the horizon. I'd never seen anything so huge or unearthly, so incredible. I wasn't afraid. I was in awe. I'm still in awe of that moon. I wonder if it will ever return, whether one day my children will tell me that it visited them, too. I hope so. My life would be less without it.