Just once or twice a bridge over a river.
That she is, or soon will be, dying.
Death humbled is no more than brief sleep.
So says Donne, impudent, confident poet.
What then of sleepless nights, of restless sleep?
Are nightmares harbingers of hell?
As we will, one eternal day, toss and burn in hell?
Toppling my flimsy barricades of excuses.
Onto the side road, just feet from the highway.
Held up by older posts.
And they wandered into the road.
Beneath the framed picture on the side wall.
Of you and your grandson.
Even in a cellphone photo.
Is not a sentence with a period.
Is it a childish game or a white supremacy code?
How do I swim through air?
I was married, you know. I was just 14. I barely remember that young girl. I remember they said she was pretty. I remember they told my mother, Adah, and my father, Phanuel, that they had raised a good woman, that I would be a good wife. I remember they said “Mazal tov” when I married. But they also said I would bear many children, they said my womb would be fruitful. So what did they know?
That was 70 years ago. Imagine, 70 years! Oy vavoy! Solomon could have built himself ten temples in that time. And still I live.
I am old now but, Jeremiah, my husband, he was still young when he died. Seven years we had been married, seven years and only then was I with child. But our child died too, without ever being born, when Jeremiah died. So I was cursed.
What could I do? So deep was I unclean, so ugly did I feel, that I went to the temple. I went to be clean again, I went to feel pretty again, I went to hope again. And I am still here. Where is there hope for me in Israel? Seventy years I have lived here in the temple, remembering what it felt like to be loved, hoping for something like love again.
My best times are with the babies. So many parents come to the temple, as required by the Law, with their firstborn sons and their turtledoves. Some come shyly, some come boldly, some come richly dressed, some come in rough cloth, some come slowly, some hurry. Always, I try to greet them, to smile at their child. To speak kind words. Sometimes, they do not want to speak to me, to let me see the babe, to hear my words of gentle praise. Sometimes they are in a hurry. Sometimes they are too shy, country people scared of the city, the Temple. Sometimes they just do not care.
Ah, but sometimes, praise be, sometimes, they let me hold the little one. They ask my blessing. They smile and thank me quietly. I carry those times in my heart. I give thanks for those times, thanks for their chesed, their loving kindness.
And I wait. Every little time of chesed gives me the small courage I need to continue with my long, slow life, although there are many times when I would rather not.
Simeon, he waits also. Waits and hopes. But he waits for the king of Israel. He hopes for the warrior king who will throw the Romans out. He is so certain that the king will come in his lifetime. Usually, he ignores the poor parents, the ones from the country. He watches carefully whenever a rich family, an important family, a particularly religious family, comes with a babe. He blesses the babe, he prays, he hopes. And always he is disappointed. But still, he says the king will come before our Sovereign Lord calls him home.
Me, I don’t need that kind of hope. Why would I want Israel to rise up against the Romans? Oy, what blood would flow, how many would die. Those babes from years ago, young men now, how many of them would die on a Roman spear or, worse, a Roman cross? No, I do not hope for a king, just for some chesed, for myself and for the young families.
And then, today, a strange thing happened. A family came with their firstborn son. A poor family, with their turtledoves. His mother and father seemed like good people. They reminded me of people I knew long ago, they reminded me of myself and my Jeremiah. So young, so full of love and hope.
Their eyes when they looked at their babe! They do not need their little one to be any more than their son. They do not need him to be a great warrior or Israel’s savior or our king. I could see it in their eyes, in the way the mother held him, in the way the father kept his arm around them both. It is enough for them that he is healthy, that he grow strong, that he be a good man, that he love our one true Lord.
And then he walked away. He said those terrible words to that young mother and he just walked away, back into the inner temple, back to his prayers.
I went up to them then. I went slowly, gently. I didn’t grab the babe out of his terrified mother’s arms. I smiled at them. I told them their son was beautiful. I asked his name. Yeshua, a good name. I asked where they were from. They told me they lived in Nazareth but their son had been born in Bethlehem and his father was indeed in the line of David. Ah, I said, so he is your wonderful son and he is our Lord’s treasure. I know you will love him well and he will grow in wisdom and strength. I can tell you are good people and he too will be a good person. And who knows, maybe old Simeon is right, maybe he will be good for many in Israel and maybe you will know sadness, but right now, enjoy each other and this beautiful babe that our gracious Lord has given you. That is enough for now.
The young father thanked me and the young mother, she gently put the babe in my arms and asked my blessing for him. Ah, the sweet warm weight, the wonder and miracle of a baby in my arms. Just a poor babe. No king. No warrior. But still, today, my heart is filled with the Lord’s chesed and I am thankful for young families. Even though I know, too well, that sometimes the future brings hardship and sorrow, still there is joy in the beginning; there is always joy and hope and the Lord’s loving kindness with a loved child.