Day Twenty: 2 Samuel 18:33
Elizabeth hovers. She means well, but I want to be alone. When I am alone…without physical distractions…especially those that remind me of my present reality…then I am with Benjamin. I seek solitude.
I went to the river again today, although I did not bathe in it. The current is swift, and I do not wish to struggle against it. The walk down and up is a mindless activity. Most of the time, I keep my head down…I do not wish to exchange pleasantries with travellers.
As I watch the roiling water of the river…the swirls and the currents…the bubbles and the foam…my mind travels back in time to a happier place. Benjamin was no more than three years old when I brought him here for the first time. I carried him down carefully, balancing him on my shoulders. It was about the same time as now…after the barley harvest. My main concern then was his safety and I remember having to repeatedly drag him away from the fast moving stream…it was as if the pool was not enough…he wanted more. He always wanted more…to see more…to know more…to experience more. And I indulged him.
I can still hear him squealing with delight as an unexpected swell sent him tumbling. Even then I had dreams of losing him…of watching helplessly as a surging undercurrent sucked him under and dragged him away from me. And yet we returned as often as we could. This is where I can see him most clearly now. Here my yearning…my aching…my pining…invokes a false reality…making the intangible tangible for a brief space in time. The past becomes the present and I am relieved for a while.
King David longed for his son, Absalom[i]…he wished to exchange places with him…to escape the void in his soul. So I long for Benjamin. If he was not lost, I would be found.
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