#54.12, Thurs., March 28, 2024

Historical Setting, The cottage in the Vosges

         This is a family reunion feast day, celebrating these generations. My oddity of life and life again is simply assumed among these people as they’ve been waiting for me, where other families meet for reunions, bringing the completed stories of ancestors who are no longer present to set the stories right. Here, I am the bearer, the earthly connection with the Jewish root of Christian.

         Gabe has taken leave from Luxeuil to be with us here. He’s been filled in on details of Brandell’s discovery of my burial and rescue. We are three generations here, with a deep root into the Jewish heritage of Christian. Four at this table are here as lovers and mates to our children so any thought we are a Jewish family with a Christian frosting is probably unfounded. Now we are all simply Christian at this table.

         Galliard mentions it, in its most superficial revelation, “We never seem to serve up the traditional Christian pig, it’s always lamb or less at this table.”

         Greg adds, “No pig ever dies for Easter on this farm.”

         Haberd adds, “No pig ever dies at all on this farm.”

         Haberd’s wife adds, “No pig ever lives on this farm.”

         Gaia weighs in, “But this lamb is really delicious.”

         Layla makes an excuse for her husband’s sour grunt, “For some, lamb is an acquired taste.”

         This is Layla’s husband’s first feast at our table, and she seems to be caught between her childhood family and her husband. He seems to me, at this first meal with him, something of an oversized, blundering ruffian – an oaf.  And here he is complaining about a serving of meat. He says, “It hardly seems like Christian food.”

         I only wish I had been here for Layla when her marriage was arranged. At least I would have sat this stranger down and asked him his dreams and biases before he ever planted his seed in the womb of our own baby girl. At least I don’t have to make my objection to any noble parentage of this fellow. Though it is clearly too late for me to make any objection now at all.

         Gaia, eases the tension asking the fellow if he is a hunter or a fisherman.

         He answers pridefully, “We have fish aplenty at our house, and when the peasantry is allowed the hunt, I can provide a plump and oily boar.  Poor but plenty is our table, isn’t that right, Girl?”

(Continues Tuesday, April 2)