Historical setting: 584 C.E. The house of Eve
While I am sitting here on the edge of the bed ready to dance the celebration of this healing Eve is in the doorway preparing a bed of sorrow.
“Are you awake Papa?”
“Awake? Yes, and I am sitting here on the edge of the bed, ready to bound into a full life very soon.”
“Papa, last night when the fire went to embers I heard a sigh from your friend Nic. I went to take him a cover for the cold, and I found the breath had gone from him. I didn’t wake you then. There was nothing to be said or done. I sent Anatase to bring Ezra and Daniel with the wagon so they can return him to the monastery for the prayers and the burial. It is where he told us he would be buried if he didn’t live for your waking.”
“But he did.” Thank you God, that I am able to see him off from this earth and into your hands. “I’ll go with them to help with the burial.”
“No, Papa. Ezra and Daniel have plenty to do as it is.”
So, I won’t be a help to them. “I understand. But let me help you prepare him for his journey.”
“Very well, Papa. Let me walk with you to the bench that is beside his bed.”
And she is right. Today I still need a person walking with me, even though I can nearly stand alone now, and I’m so strong I can nearly not crumple to floor with the pain of it all. Were Eve not my strength just now I would surely be slithering along the earth. It is an arduous journey all the way to the bench near the fire where I see Nic is sleeping in the tranquility of his newly found place in death.
My beautiful daughter, a healer, though now blind, has memorized every motion of filling a basin, gathering cloth rags for washing the body, and preparing everything that is needed then bringing all these things to this bench for me to have a part, spilling not a drop. As I do the motions of this preparation I thank Eve for thinking of my need to help. I can do this for my friend. She prepares now to dress him back in his monk’s garb, but wait…
(Continues tomorrow)
Lazarus Ink 