Historical Setting, 629 C.E. farm in the Vosges Mts.
These things that Ana keeps on her shelf of precious things speak of our family at different ages. The value in them is in the ‘once was,’ and not the ‘someday, maybe’ of it. Simon’s ashroot harp that Brandell also learned his music with sits here just as Brandell left it when he traveled off to Constantinople. He left it behind because he intended to give up his music for the art, then when he arrived in that city, he found a builder of the kithara, used as a harp by the Greeks, so now his music flows new again. Isn’t that how it is with each of these old treasures? They are the story of how we are new people always and again. Already the hands of the grandchildren no longer fit into the fingermarks of the child making the vase, and all of us speak with new words and phrases beyond the writing in the study pages we keep as books.
Holding onto what was once can be seen either as a view of how far we have come or as grief for the once-it-was-better-than this. It all depends how we see from the place we are. And now, grief obsesses, though I still hear Ana’s breath in this silence. Grief hides in a place near love. Grief belongs to the universe, so we don’t own it, even though we may claim it. Love also belongs to the universe. Love is the universe. We live in love in the way a fish lives in the sea.
Dear God, in all my prayers and psalm singing I always ask for you to stay close to me and to the ones I love, as though the distance was yours to cause. This distance is my own nature which fails to notice I am already swimming in holy love. Help me notice the beauty in this love even through this is a difficult time. Amen.
And now Ana is waking and all we can imagine is vulnerability and mortality that always was there, but never noticed.
“How are you feeling, Ana? Can I get you anything? Are you warm enough? Do you want a sip of water, or some of this tea Hannah has made for you?”
“It’s alright, Laz. I’m just glad you’re here.”
I move the stool to the bedside, and brush her hair from her face, and take her hand.
“You know, Laz….”
(Continues tomorrow)
Lazarus Ink 