The Mourning Moth
I sat outside on my rocking chair while my friend relayed her day and its novelties over the phone. A new job, a new start. Things seemed to be looking up. The night air was light, but the mosquitoes still attempted their strikes. A wave of the hand, on this end of Spring, luckily suffices enough of a defense. Gently rocking myself back and forth like a baby to the sounds of a mundane call that held hope for new days.
It was a short conversation. But, delightful in its function. Dusk descended deeper into the night. It was time to settle in and wind down from the packed afternoon.
I tucked myself into the bed while the usual ‘clacking’ of keys sounded off in the corner with a husband attached to endless strings of combinations in fighting form. I didn’t check to see which game he was playing. Instead, I let my eyes glue to a comfort show, scrolled Instagram for a bit, and waited for sleep to come.
From a low periphery, I could see it. Something fuzzy. I wondered if I had, in fact, caught that floating wisp in the air I saw outside. Thinking it had attached to my shirt. Thinking “I knew I caught that thing…” But, it wasn’t that.
A small moth was perched on my upper chest on the right side, right near my collarbone. I don’t mind moths. So, naturally, I started talking to it.
“Buddy, what are you doing?” I asked him. “We should probably take you back outside, huh?”
I gently got up and cupped my hands around his little body so he wouldn’t move, walked outside, and presented the night to him.
“Go on, bud.”
He wouldn’t move.
I looked at him a little closer, his little antennae moving gently, almost waving ‘hello.’ I brushed a wing tenderly to encourage flight, but still, he wouldn’t move. I fumbled what felt like fat fingers around this tiny form, trying with everything I had to avoid crushing him. I turned my shirt in every direction, wishing he would just fly.
“It’s so nice outside, don’t you want to go?” I asked him.
Something in me broke. I started to cry. I sobbed, “Please, please what do you need? Do you want to sit on the banister? What about this pot? A leaf?” Still, nothing. Only the small waves of a singular antennae.
He was turned towards me, eyes directed at mine. A small wave again.
He was dying.
All I could do was watch until it was done. I started to notice his body. He was missing his second antennae; I couldn’t see a second arm either.
“Okay buddy, okay.” I said through buckets of sorrow for this creature. Why was I crying? Why did this matter? Why the fuck am I so upset? Why didn’t I just blow him off of my shirt? Isn’t that what you do with bugs? Wave them off?
At last, I could pluck him from my shirt. Carefully placing his body on the porch banister while I prepared a tiny grave in the succulent garden. A potting box no bigger than two and a half feet long, and half a foot wide. I had filled it with different struggling plants with no homes and Kodama figures, specifically placed. It was a peaceful design. A beautiful place to rest.
“I’m sorry buddy, safe passage.” I concluded, still weeping as if my cat had just died. As if something I had understood had left this world. As if I knew him. As if I raised him myself.
For all I know, I swatted him out of the air and I bore witness to my own bumbling cruelty. Thinking only of myself and the biting mosquitoes. A horrible giant laying waste to the valleys below me.
Or, he chose to spend his last moments on the soft surface of my t-shirt. It was a Comfort Colors brand, after all. Maybe he just landed there —I don’t know.
As I prepared to go inside, I knew I had to explain to my husband why.
‘Why are you crying over a dead moth, Kristina?’ I practiced hearing in my head. Wracking my brain for a reason that was sound. Finding nothing but more tears.
I walked in and tried to conceal my face, embarrassed that I was worked-up over said moth. The embarrassment didn’t last long, however. Even as I turned my reddened face towards him, I didn’t feel shame. I felt what I was supposed to, I suppose. If I can suppose anything.
I do know, however, that the little garden full of forgotten toys will grow. And it will grow with him in mind.
Rest in peace little friend, forgive me.