Historical Setting, 629 C.E. Creek House in the Vosges Mts.
“Maybe it is true that Hannah doesn’t know everything about marriage,” I’m telling Layla, “And you may be right, that she can’t understand what it is to be married. But don’t, for a moment, forget marriage is about the beautiful life. So, this papa’s demand to you in this, ‘Please keep the belonging to one another sacred and beautiful. Marriage is not purposed with rearranging blame or transferring sins onto some poor wandering creature’.”
Will hears the donkey snorting and trotting up the path to their patch. He comes out to greet Layla and takes the baby in his arms as Layla steps from the cart.
Somewhere, amid the welcome home and greetings and the turning the cart around and the leaving, Will calls out to me,
“Papa Laz, I’ll take good care of them. Trust me.”
And I sort of do trust him. I know they are working through the raw beginnings of relationship together. Dear God, thank you for this moment of hope and this window of knowing their lives could actually be good.
Going back home alone, of course I’m aware my patriarchal lecture might just go past Layla unheard. But right now, I need to listen myself. Right now, when our own sons and daughters have found their life partners beyond the walls and our cottage and the warmth of our hearth, I need to value relationship too, even when it is just Ana and I. It is a brief moment for our life together. Maybe the sin that was lifted from us by the beautiful cat is that of not noticing the beauty in our own simplicity and now we are rescued.
I’ve learned not to assume that Ana only wants quiet in her illness and her aging. She might need something living to accompany her gaze at old memories. And now that we are dealing with her health crises, we are all thinking about the things that make a life joyful. Maybe the chaos of family is joy.
So, returning here, I find my ax sharpened and an exacting plan by Hannah for construction of a sleeping loft in the Creek Cottage. Vizsla and I go into the woods for strong and sturdy saplings to be its supports.
Dear God, thanks for the crowd and the noise and the pets and the strangers and the family, for the beautiful noise of now.
(Continues tomorrow)
Lazarus Ink 