Day Ten:
I heard them before I saw them. They were wailing like professional mourners at a funeral.
Panic seized me by the throat. Benjamin?
I rushed to the window. There was a crowd from the city gathered in the courtyard outside Benjamin’s door. There was the Rabbi…and the elders from the gate. They were praying, rocking back and forth. Some had dirt on their heads. I was breathing hard and fast. Why did someone not tell me? But…then I noticed the absence of a body. There was no body. Then it hit me like a boulder in a rockslide.
My mouth opened to shout out, “No!” But no sound came out of my throat save a wheeze. I watched in horror as Aaron took the clay jar from the Rabbi’s hands.[i] The incessant wailing pierced my heart like a double-edged sword…does a soul bleed? Yes. Yes, it does. My soul was bleeding all over the floor. I heard the crash as the jar hit the ground. I saw the splinters fly into every corner of our compound. I heard the words…cutting off my son…cutting off my Benjamin from our people. They were mourning him dead for selling our land to a Gentile.
I saw him look at me…Aaron looked up at me standing in my window. Then he ushered the crowd out and left. I stood staring at the shards of pottery lying on the ground where Benjamin had walked not too long ago. Each piece was a piece of my heart…they walked over the pieces…they walked over my heart.
At last I found my voice…but it was not a shout or a scream or even a sob…it was a whisper. “Benjamin,” I sighed. “Benjamin, my Benjamin.”
I was standing in a puddle. Had I lost control over my bladder? With shame I sat back down on my bed and groaned as a rolled into a ball.
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