Lochlainneach

Hymn to the Moon

Featured Gaelic and Pronunciations:

- a mùirnean (ah moohr-nyahn) - darling

- Trobhad (trow-ahd) - come

- Ceart-leth (kersht ley) - true half; soulmate

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4 April, 1750

Cìosamul Castle, Castlebay, Scotland

Death came to Cìosamul Castle on a rainy early April day. For months, the residents of the castle had watched as Mairead Fionnuala MacLeod Fowlis turned a whiter shade of pale, blending into the bedsheets. Her once plump cheeks began to shrink and her once green eyes sank and shaded; her dark hair, with its silvery streaks, gave her a ghastly appearance, and towards early March, she no longer resembled herself. Grandsire never once left her side, and while he tended to his wife, Cailean temporarily took over his Laird duties. We'd all brought our grandmothers' great grandchildren to say their goodbyes, which was harder on her than on them. She began to wonder who would spoil them rotten, but we all insisted that we would take over in her honour. Brèagha, who'd turned three last November, was the most devastated by having to say goodbye to her great grandmother, but Jamie comforted her by saying that she was going to be with God.

"God no need Gramma. I need Gramma!" Brèagha whined in her sweet, childlike voice.

"God has angels tha' need a grandmother, too, a mùirnean ," Jamie told his daughter as he held her on his hip. Archie, too, was badly affected by the loss of his grandmother. At six years old, he was no longer that young child who relied on his mother for everything, and unlike his sister or his cousins, simply telling him that Grandma was going to be the angels' grandmother wasn't enough to put him at ease. He knew that she wasn't going to be coming back, and he knew that she was joining the many people he'd known in his short life that had already died.

The day my grandmother died, everyone who loved her - her daughter, all of her grandchildren, nieces and nephews and their children - all had crowded in the sitting room outside of the Laird's bedchamber, all patiently waiting to say their goodbyes. Jamie and Cailean were standing near the window chatting, Jamie holding Brèagha and Cailean with Cillian. Saoirse was with Thora and Beitiris, each of them holding their daughters on their lap. Maisie was seated in front of the fireplace blowing her nose and wiping her tears, Liùsaidh and Seàrlas on either side of her to comfort her. Alasdair and his siblings, too, were there, as were all of their children, and my Great Aunt Sorcha's children and grandchildren, too, had come from Skye to say goodbye. In addition to immediate family were servants and members of the extended family, like Ronald, who had come to pay their respects and say their final goodbyes to the Lady of Cìosamul, who granted them kindness and was said to be the greatest Lady that Cìosamul had ever seen. Archie, on the other hand, was off in the corner of the room, a very sad look on his kindly face. I approached him and bent down to place a hand on his shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze.

"Are ye all right, lamb?" I asked him as he wiped his eyes with his sleeves.

"I dinnae want her te go, Mama," he told me quietly.

"Oh, mo leannan ... I dinnae want her te go, either," I told him. He quickly turned and threw his arms around my waist, burying his face in my dress to muffle his sobs. "My sweet lad, dinnae fash. Yer grandmother wouldnae want ye te be sad, ye ken tha' well."

"I... I cannae help it, Mama... I-I dinnae want her te go," my son sobbed into my abdomen. I caught a shadow crossing the light that was being cast into the corner and glanced up to see that Jamie had come over from the other side of the room, a concerned look on his face as he looked down at his son.