Historical Setting: 792 C.E.
I ask Marian the question that has been most on my mind, “In the Christian way of counting, what is this year?”
Marian tells me she thinks it may be 792 at least for the measure of time in Gaul after the start of time. So, with my strange nature of life and life again I was buried as a dead man for 161 years. With so much time passing I can’t expect to return to my loved ones and find my life as it had been – except the grieving for those I once loved is always familiar to me. Even my grandchildren would be gone by now. I wonder if the hill behind the ruin of Annegray is still a farm — such a fine farm we had then.
So, is a gift of continued healing and life and life again a blessing or a curse? Without holes in my memory as might be gifted to some of us as we are old, remembered grief is always grief. It sneaks into my imagination when I least expect it – a familiar sound or a fragrance …
This unquenchable grief was there when I awoke into life in the cache of a grave-robber when I saw my soldier son’s byrnie hanging lifeless, leftover, with earthen bits still clinging. As tattered and empty as it was, its limp chains hung there along with other maybe marketable grave goods unearthed from other graves with strangers’ griefs attached to them. In a century or more already passed it was only the chain mail that remembers Greg. In life, he and his partner were fine men who sang and danced and loved. When they took me traveling with them, I had already cut Ana’s name into a stone. So, passed life is only known as a stone and steel now, and whatever love is lingering lives deep in my memory.
I push the flaming log on the hearthstone closer to the center of the flame, and some sparks rise up, always rising from the embers, ever here, even in this unknown time and place.
Dear God, thank you for staying close, sharing my grief, keeping my loved ones close to you, in the oneness of all love, so that the bright sparks of moments recalled are not all there is, but let me keep the full flickers of remembrances and thoughts of the wholeness of the warmth and light and love.
Marian interrupts my quietude. “We finally have a warm fire in this place. Thanks.”
(Continues Tuesday, December 31, 2024)
Lazarus Ink 