Historical Setting, 626 C.E. The farm in the Vosges
My prayers throughout this decade and six years have mostly been gratitude. We’ve had no more eulogies for our children, only bits of grieving for the passages of youth. I was last keeping this journal in December of 610. These years have brought subtle transitions. In that span of time my inks and papyrus were spent on tallies of crops and critters and tithes for God’s earthly establishment and for the land itself. Land owners have divided lands and neighbors have set out new fields. Our farm has boundaries and definitive edges now.
Routine gives creativity free play or maybe simply fills the hours. I see my children finding it both ways. Haberd finds a peace in farm chores always knowing what he is doing next, and Brandell uses routine chores for dreaming and scheming and rhyming.
Now our own grand babies fill the loft of our old cottage on the hill.
Ana, whose sunshine hair is mingled with silver threads is a little frustrated that I always look the same. Her always blue eyes still shine from a face with her bright smiles and her eternal empathy — a few crinkles of time enhance the smiling of her eyes, so no matter what her mood we still see her deep joy echoed in the lines of lifetime. Her beauty is not just some passing childish whim, it is woven into who she is.
But you know me, as long as I live, I’m always the same changeless age. Maybe it’s due to my strange gift of healing, and life and life again, or maybe everyone, when they reach a certain age just lets the olding stages of their lives go by unmentioned.
So, what of our children through all these years? Our oldest, the twins, Greg and Gabe, are still all about changing the world in their own ways. Gabe is the bird keeper at Luxeuil and Greg is yet wandering the lands to the East with Gaillard. Whenever they learn of wars and politics that could change everything here, they go out as messengers. Once a few years ago, and now, again, they’ve come back to stay a while in Gaul.
Gaillard’s family has released him from his obligation for an heir so now only family titles are broken by his bond with Greg. Unbroken is his family’s love. I commend the nobility of Metz for the wisdom to see love as a priority. Thank you, God.
(Continues tomorrow)
Lazarus Ink 