When Jobed's house fell, I thought my heart would burst. All of my children, gone, without warning, without reason. How is a woman to bear such a trial? My children were my life, my purpose. No matter that I did not bear each one in my womb. They became mine the moment my father promised me to Job. His children became mine, and I ached for them as sorely as the ones that grew in my belly.
But then they all were lost in one agonizing moment. I know they are safe in heaven now where nothing can harm them, but I am here, left behind to feel the hollow in my heart.
I still have Job, and he does try to assuage my pain, but he feels the loss differently. And he has been distracted. The fire, the thieves, the plague on our flocks. I feel God is testing us, and we must be failing. Our neighbors say we are cursed. They will not speak it, but I know they wish us miles away. When I go to the well, all eyes avert and the silence becomes deafening. In the market, a path clears around me, and I am able to buy fish at the price I name for no one wishes me to linger.
And so I sit alone, finishing the weave for my little Daniel's blanket, though he will never feel its warmth around him. I cannot leave it unfinished: it would only serve as a token of the life he left too soon, a life unfinished. I fear the sight of it would drive me to madness.
I know, in time, if our Lord does not take me to join my children, the sharpness of this grief will dull. But my heart can never truly heal. Each of their souls took a part of mine with them when they fled to heaven. These wounds may heal, but the scars they leave will forever keep my heart from becoming whole.
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