Historical Setting, 629 C.E. the family farm in the Vosges
I have an agenda already for my first day at home. Everybody has something to tell me so Hannah scheduled my day as though I were a king sitting at court. I will see all my children by appointment today.
But I find something important to me was apparently overlooked. I will need some time with the grandchildren. Gone away for a couple of years I imagine that’s the particular place in this household where the most has changed. I want to see them now, two years older. I want to know what they wonder about and what they can tell me that I might have forgotten to notice.
Hannah allows me this time she schedules as “soon.” Now Ana and I meet Haberd’s three children, racing, rolling, romping down the hill path to our door. They are eight, five and four now, each a unique personality, each venturing into the nature of earth with new eyes on life itself. These are the things I want to know about. What is new and fresh as God awakens the world into life nearly into the season of spring? What was new this morning? What had we, in our old ways, let go of by just assuming it was mundane, but through children’s eyes is precious.
I ask the oldest if she’s been to this creek in the summertime to see dragonflies here. She seems miffed and asks why I want to know about something like that. Ana tells me the children have been encouraged to prepare for my return by practicing a show of excellence in letters with recitations. But those are things I already know. Presentations are lovely, though they are simply young voices trying to get old things properly aligned.
“What happened last summer? Did anyone see dragonflies?”
“Last summer there were lots of them – little bright blue sticks hovering over logs, snatching up gnats.” That’s the knowledgeable word from the oldest.
“I saw a red one once.” ventures the four-year-old.
“You did not! They are always blue except for the white ones with brown stripes. They aren’t red.”
“Maybe it was just too hot and it turned red?” suggests the five-year-old.
I add my actual words of wisdom, “Red ones are very rare, but they are known to exist.”
“I told you so,” agrees the red dragonfly denier, as though she thought that all along.
(Continues tomorrow)
Lazarus Ink 