Category: Camaraderie

Mid-Autumn Festival- It’s the night the moon is said to be at its fullest and brightest, it’s also the night families try to come home to each other. To gather around the table, share a meal and later sit beneath the moon with mooncakes in hand, savoring both the taste and the company with pu-er tea.

Ever since I was young, this has always been my mum’s day, the few of us, mooncakes between us, sitting under the same moon year after year. There’s something quietly beautiful this year. she’s visiting my brother on the other side of the world. Everyone seems to be busy on this day, my family isn’t around me either. It feels different, quieter. But Diane passed me a mooncake, just as she always has over the years – a small, beautiful red box that’s all i need tonight- a little warmth.

Even when some of us are far away, there’s comfort in knowing we’re all looking up at the same moon, on the same night, feeling a little less apart.

We met in RCIA thirteen years ago. The two strangers finding our way into faith, not knowing we were also finding our way into something else entirely. Jo was our facilitator to Em and me.

Life hasn’t been gentle to any of us since. There have been seasons of heartbreak, decisions we second-guessed, days we didn’t think we’d get through. But somehow, we always found our way back to the same table.

Last Saturday, it was a small gathering just the three of us again. Nothing fancy. Just bubble tea, comfort food, old stories, new hobbies and the kind of laughter that doesn’t ask permission to show up, even on hard days. We talked about our struggles the way old friends do , without needing to explain the backstory, because we already know it. And in between the heavy things, there was still so much joy to have one another. That’s the part I didn’t expect thirteen years ago that friendship could hold both the sorrow and the laughter in the same breath, and somehow make both feel lighter.

I think that’s the real gift from God. Not that life got easier, but that we never had to carry it alone. We have one another to share with during good and bad days.

To Jo and Em: “Thank you for staying at the table all these years.”