Morgan had ignored the Festival of Lights for a lot of years, thinking herself as almost above the mourning that everyone else had to do; yet this year when she had participated she had found herself actually finding the festivities rather calming and cathartic, the chance to speak about her father so much helping her to put him away from her mind: she had not realised how much his death was still clouding her.
The lantern she brought to hang was a simple one. White, with snow-stained mountains in the soft fabric of the sides, representing the land he had loved so well; a single red dot on one side that bled naturally down the pattern, swirls of water in the paint to mark out the grisly end her father had met, one she could not separate from her thoughts of him now no matter how hard she tried. Still, she hung the lantern with his side facing away from herself, as if choosing to see only the good parts of her father's life.
Standing back to watch everyone else hang their lanterns, she took a deep breath and slowly let it out, thinking of each soul that each light represented, how they had all once lived and thought and been just like she was.
