Where's the Moon, Honey?

As newly-weds we arrived at our honeymoon hotel. Our friends had pooled together to give us a generous wedding gift – an all-expenses paid, one week stay at the newly opened Sheraton Hotel in Darwin. We checked in and went to go up to our room, on route we spied the restaurant and my husband suggested we check out the menu. Glancing through, I noticed the rice section, my husband being Asian, I exclaimed “Look, here’s rice, honey” But on closer inspection, all they had to offer was rice salad. “Oh boy!” was my husband’s response. We continued on to where our room was. It was the second best room in the hotel (the honeymoon suite was already taken). The room was decorated in delicate rose hues, the bed soft and ‘romantic’. Sweet.

We began to settle in for the night and when we were ready to climb into bed, we paused to pray together. This was nothing out of the ordinary for me, raised a Pastor’s daughter and a staunch Christian myself, I was glad to start this new stage of my life in prayer together with my husband. We held hands and bowed our heads, my husband, also a Pastor, then prayed. I was in full agreement with everything he said, but just as he was finishing he ‘announced’ that he was going to fast.

Now, fasting also was nothing new, but somehow fasting on my honeymoon wasn’t going down with me too well, besides it was a time of celebration, a time for feasting and enjoying yourself, right? - so, I too began to pray silently in my thoughts, asking God to make me at least willing to fast. If my husband was spiritual enough to fast at such a time, then as his wife I should too.

So fast we did.

The next morning, my husband made another ‘announcement’. He was going to sleep on the floor tonight, he had found the bed too soft and couldn’t sleep. I, on the other hand, could sleep in the bed but he was going to sleep on the floor. I was aware that my husband was accustomed to sleeping on the floor, but there was no way I was going to spend my honeymoon sleeping in the bed alone! I declared if he was to sleep on the floor, I would too – we ended up in the bed.

After 3 days of fasting and praying, we had run out of things to pray for and boredom had set in, so we resorted to staring out the window of the hotel.

“Why don’t we go out to the mall or something.”? I suggested

“Been there already.” he replied.

“How about fishing?” I continued.

“Done that” he said, already bronzed from 3 weeks of fishing on and off prior to our wedding.

After a few other ideas were tossed in with the same response, we both stared blankly out the window.

My husband broke the silence a few minutes later, “Why do we need to stay here? he asked. “It’s our honeymoon” I answered matter-of-factly.

Not knowing the tradition of honeymoons, he asked what a honeymoon was. I patiently explained, the best I knew how, why I thought it was called a honeymoon. I described a couple sitting on a park bench, in each other’s embrace, gazing up at the moon and whispering sweet nothings in each other’s ear.

There was a long pause. He was in deep thought. He glanced up at the night sky outside and said:

“Where’s the Moon, Honey?

Needless to say, we checked out the next day.

Three years down the track, I was to discover, the reason for the fast was not for ‘spiritual’ reasons at all – he just didn’t like the food. J


Copyright 2006. Rebecca Laklem.