Secrets Of My Songs #4 (Dancing Moon)

It was an early Sunday evening when I had just got done watching a show on TV and the phone rang. The show was very emotional. I can't remember the name of it but it was about a boy who had cancer (I think) and he wanted to be an astronaut when he grew up. However, he would never grow up. He built a cardboard / wooden rocket in his front yard and he would play in it and pretend he was orbiting the moon and everything. At the end, the little boy woke up from his sleep in the middle of the night. He was in severe pain. He knew the time was near so he struggled to crawl out of his bed and down the stairs, out the front door and into his rocket. There he would die by morning's light. His parents found him in there all crawled up in a ball. It was a very powerful scene. The final scene showed him dancing on the moon in his astronaut gear. I cried.

But when the phone rang and I answered it, it was my little sister. She was a senior in high school and living with her best friend, who had graduated a year or two prior and was now married and living with her husband. The reason my sister was living with her during her senior year was because mother and stepdad moved to North Carolina to start a business. They returned shortly before sister graduated. Fortunately, they did not sell the house in Kingston at that time.

Anyhow, when I answered the phone, my sister was half crying because she had run out of money and mother wasn't going to be sending her anymore for about a week and she was afraid to ask for extra cash. I told her to stop crying and that I would be right over.

When I arrived, I opened up the wallet and gave her like 40 dollars. I told her she could always come to me if she needs extra money. I told her she can have as much as she wants. (She did call me a few more times for such purpose. I loved helping her out.) And so, by the time I got back home that night, I was emotionally spent. First the movie, and then my little sister. So I sat down at my desk and began writing the song, "Dancing On The Moon", for my little sister - and with the movie in mind.

I may have cried a little when I wrote it.