In an old Chinese legend, an emperor was granted a special pill that would give him immortality. He only had to wait for it to ripen, and then he would live on forever. His wife watched this development fearfully. The emperor was not a nice man. His paranoia of being overthrown caused him to be cruel and inequitable towards his subjects. She could not imagine what would happen if his reign were to last forever. So, one night, she took the pill from its velvety box and ate it before it was ripe in order to prevent her husband from taking it. The unripe pill caused her to swell up, up, up into a huge, green frog. Furious that she had stolen from him, her husband chased her from their palace, and she hopped away fearfully, all the way up into the night sky. Her froggy legs took her all the way to the moon where all she could do was watch over the Earth from afar, miserable and lonely but hopeful that her husband’s reign of suffering would end. As years passed, the pill ripened in her stomach. Finally, she was transformed and granted her immortality, becoming goddess of the moon.
Goodnight, moon…. goodnight stars…. my mom read us Goodnight Moon so many times when we were little that she had it completely memorized. On nights where we went to bed too late to stay up and read the book, she would recite it to us in a soft voice as we drifted off to sleep.
Say goodnight to our lonely moon before going to bed each night. How lucky we are that she watches over us.