Black Moths Seeking Light

“I’m so sorry–he’s dead,” Mary said, looking down at the hallway carpet. Isabelle stood there as Mary touched her arm and then pulled her into a hug.

Isabelle was eighteen: an age associated with beginnings, not endings. But Isabelle’s life seemed to begin with this ending. Even though she had legally just become an adult, Isabelle felt had been an adult for much longer because she had cared for her father for almost half of her life. She was the offspring of her father’s casual affair with a much younger woman who worked in the operations department at the bank where he was an executive. Her father married her mother when she became pregnant in order to save face in the community in which they lived. But, the marriage didn’t last long after Isabelle was born. Her mother’s secret cocaine addiction resurfaced and because she refused help, she was kicked out by her father.

Isabelle was two years old when her mother left and she had no solid memories of her. The only remnants of her mother could be traced in her father’s cautiousness and in Isabelle’s soft facial features and frail build. Isabelle favored her mother’s appearance; she stood at five foot six and had long blonde hair and eyes of dark green jade. Isabelle was named by her parents when they were on their honeymoon in France. Her father told her that her mother thought of the name as they picnicked near a field of lavender in Provence. As her mother inhaled the heady scent of the lavender carried on the summer breeze, she said, “What is the french word for beautiful?” Her father said it was “belle” and as her mother uttered the word back, Isabelle moved within her, and that was how she knew it would be her name.

Her father had once stood a very tall, proud man. Shortly before his death, her father was very weak and could barely walk because the chemotherapy had caused him to lose so much weight. Because of her mother’s wild ways, Isabelle’s father became afraid and, as a result, religious. Her father took her to Kirk in the Hills every Sunday and had her attend Cranbrook Schools. Even though her life was quite sheltered, it was not without pleasure. Isabelle had a tremendous imagination and she loved to get lost in the hidden staircases inside the Kirk or on the garden paths at Cranbrook’s Estate. Kirk in the Hills rested on Long Lake and one time, Isabelle climbed up one of the long staircases to the top of the spire where the carillon was located. There was a tiny triangular window where one could look out and see the entire lake. She heard the wind whip against the stone walls that separated her and the sky and thought about how high she was. This was what it must be like to fly. Some day she would fly away from here, she thought.

Her private adventures extended into her school life as well She would wander away and pretend that she was lost in some strange, tactile terrain in Kenya. The wonderful thing about Cranbrook was that it was rich in books and there were always more to discover. Just when she thought she had run out of things to read, her teachers encouraged her to delve into this hobby, which also proved to be a wonderful escape as she began to deal with the reality of her father’s cancer which was discovered when Isabelle turned ten. It ran on his side of the family. She did her best to help him down the stairs and got his medicine from the corner drugstore. She knew all of his medications, dosages and when he needed to take them. After she finished her homework, she would sit with her father in his room and read to him until he fell asleep. He always had her read from Kipling, Milton, any of his favorite poets.

Her father studied abroad one year at Oxford University in Economics. While he was there, he roomed with George Gunderson, a second year student who was studying literature. George’s passion for the classics began to rub off on her father and when he returned to the States, he had developed quite an addiction to literature. He read many poems to Isabelle as she grew up. Isabelle not only loved reading, like her father, but she loved to write as well. Her father indulged her on her birthdays and holidays with lovely leather bound journals and fountain pens. Isabel would go off to her room after she read to her father until he fell asleep, and she would write until the early morning hours. The moon would cast a blue light through the window across from her bed and she would imagine what it would be like to travel to places like China or Paris. Her father had said that he wanted her to study at Oxford and she was accepted into Christ Church College. Now, that her father had passed and the summer was about to come to a close, it was time for Isabelle to step away from what she knew all of her life and walk into a new life at Oxford.

On her last night home, Isabelle sat on her back porch and watched the moths dance around the lanterns in the yard. She recalled reading somewhere that in Hawaii, it was believed that if a Black Witch Moth returned after the death of a loved one, the moth represented the embodiment of that person’s soul returning to say their goodbyes. As Isabelle, thought about this, she began to speak words to her father by the light of those lanterns.

“Dad, it’s me… I leave tomorrow and I miss you so much. I want you to be proud of me. I am going to see this world and I am going to write about it. I love you…”