Historical Setting, 629 C.E. farm in the Vosges Mts.
“She’s sleeping. We talked. I know. I don’t understand it, but I know what you know.”
“I’m sorry Papa. I’ve seen this before. Momma knows this thing also. Vizsla and I didn’t agree. But Momma told us what to do.”
Vizsla speaks, also in a whisper, “As a surgeon, trained for battle wounds I would want to take my blade and sever every evil root, seen or hidden, known or imagined until there was no more of the possibility of that root spreading, likely taking the whole life of her. And then I could say we had done all we could…”
Hannah told me of Ana’s own answer to Vizsla’s plan, “Momma knows this longing for the power to rescue despite the life of the patient. She told us before we even cut her breast how she wanted this decision to be made.
“the nuns already did all they could, and they did nothing at all with the blade.” She said at first, she blamed them, even though she also knew they knew there was nothing they could do. “Instead, their prayers gave me back this time with all of you. It is a vacant wish that this could be fixed with the blade. It is a prayer answered with love, that we can belong to one another for a day more or forever.”
“And then” Hannah explains, “we proceeded to cut a pebble from that same breast that nurtured me and my brothers and sister, but it wasn’t a simple thing we just could fix. Vizsla did the stitching back. I couldn’t see to do that through my own tears.”
So, we will cherish this precious time of belonging for however many days or months there are.
Isn’t it one day more or forever that gives each of us our own mortality? Each day is precious and cherished, which is a perception of knowing our earthly finitude. Some of us live long and lonely grasping for the thread of love left in our longings. We wish away earthly endings, and yet, we always must find them.
Hannah and Vizsla go now, to spend their night together as the young lovers as Ana as I were once.
In summer’s dusk I sit by the cold and darkened hearthstone listening to her sleeping breath. My prayer is always gratitude for her breath even in this anxious grasp to hold onto this most tangible moment.
(Continues tomorrow)
Lazarus Ink 