Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time
Dear God, thank you for this life gift. Give me strength and resilience to learn to make use of this broken body again.
In these few days since I begged for the branch to stay in our midst, with the new freedom of stretching my limbs and sitting here on the straw, I find I am already able to grasp onto the branch. I begin to find power in my once useless arms. I can reach up and hold onto the branch, and at least support my imaginary plan to pull myself up and walk again.
Morning by morning in my imagination I rise up, and with each thought and prayer of it, I make a bit more progress. But mostly, it is about falling back exhausted. The monk prays, the dog keeps watch, and when my shaking knees fail the dog yelps and nudges the monk from his prayers. I crawl back to my place. And all we can think of is the failure. But really, morning by morning, though it goes unnoticed, I actually am becoming stronger and steadier.
Some days into this project now, I am nearly standing, leaning on the straight walls, bending my excessive height under the curves of the roof. Trinity is simply in awe of my stature. At first, she shied back and bowed her head down to her front paw and offered a little testing-teasing kind of growl. She is the one who can stand taller than the little monk if she would rise up on her hind legs. And I know she is wondering who is the tallest of us all now, and it appears it might be me – the useless one.
With this revelation we all have to reevaluate relationships anew. The canine is trying to accept this with a tentative wagging tail and a few submissive nudges. I guess that makes this healing official. In this little place I am the giant. The hound had considered herself to be the largest of beasts, and now, here I am as tall as this house, and I have to bend to fit the ceiling. Of course, as houses go, this is a very small dome of rocks.
Today, the little monk goes outside, and he takes Trinity with him. Maybe he needs his time alone, or perhaps, he is offering me the space to practice putting my legs back into usefulness. He understands the increments of healing.
We all know healing, miraculous as it is, is never a single magical moment of painless wonder.
(Continues Tuesday, June 23, 2026)
Lazarus Ink 