The story's short, less than a chapter. About the prophet Elisha, a Shunammanite woman, and the loss (& resurrection) of her promised son. We had a teaching on it at church, and it's been on my mind ever since.
If you're unfamiliar, you can read it here.
I wrote a poem and I don't have another place for it to live, so here it is:
Woman’s Song
If I had not met you
I would not miss you
This is a lie
I have missed you from the moment I changed from child to woman
Maybe wanting you was the moment
Imagining your weight
Filling me
I cannot be a mother
But I can welcome others home
And then
This time next year
You shall embrace a son
Do not lie to your servant
You cannot be true
My body has given up
And then here you are
Sweet milkbreath
Sour fist uncurling
You were exactly as I hoped
And someone completely different
And then
You are gone
I’m tired, you said
Lie down, I said
And then
your breath left
Your fists grew slack
I was supposed to see you keep living
I was supposed to slip away first
But you have been wrenched
If I had not met you
I would not know how much bigger
my missing you could grow
Woman's Journey
I must go
I spent my life hosting a good stranger
Never asking for more
I could have gone on this way
An extra room
A little ache
Happy most days
Now all I know is the ache of you
I’d do it all over again
Even knowing this
There is no time to hold you
And weep
All is well
Can it be well?
I must go
I never asked for this
But I am asking now
I am asking through movement
Not words
He sees
He goes to the place I prepared for him
A gesture from a time without you
An obedience I was glad to give
But I cannot give you
Must I give you up?
Must I say goodbye for the rest of my life?
Elisha’s Prayer
Are you a god who does this to his children?
Do you give them half the story?
Do you honor their prepared rooms with corpses?
Do you weep with us?
I saw you take your servant
Without death
I asked for a double portion
Your spirit
It has been welcomed in this room
How can you leave this
I have looked at your chariots with my own eyes
It does not have to be this way
The Discomfort
Eyes to glassy eyes
Breath to cold mouth
Hands to small hands
Warmth
You do not leave bodies
In places built from hope
Again
Eyes to eyes
Breath to warming mouth
Hands to sticky child’s palms
Achoo!
Ach-ooooo!
Achoo!
Achoo
Achoo
Achoo
Achoo
So alive the breath needs a magnificent entrance
Woman, come
Pick him up
Woman’s Song (Reprise)
All is well
All is well, now
Your sweet breath
Your ferocious sneezes
I have received what I daren’t ask for
And then I asked for more
life
Do not give me joy as a passing guest
in a locked room
Give joy to me as a companion
In the field
In my lap
Sticky and wild
Constantly hungry
Arms wrapped tight
Alive and sneezing
Fin
Notes:
I've heard this story before, focused on the joyful moment of receiving a beloved child back from the dead. But this time around, I'm thinking a lot about Elisha in that room, eye to eye with death.
The mother who received a son she didn't even dare ask for, it was such a secret wish. The mother left with this child in her lap, asking why she was given a son if he was only going to be taken away. The resurrection doesn't take away the anguish of this time.
I'm thinking about how we're not meant to gloss over the hurting middle. When we find ourselves there, we may weep. Weep for the lost hours with our children. For our lone-wolf days that could've been spent in fellowship. For days or years gulped up by misguided direction. For the raw aching of being a body pinned down to space and time.
I can't find the quote, but someone said eternal life can sound too scary for us, but we want it for our loved ones. It's enough to think of going through our lives without losing them.
I keep thinking about Elisha, lying prone on this boy's body, a thing almost too uncomfortable to talk about. The full, unflinching reality of death under his weight. The moment of breath on cold skin before.
Might we have these moments? Ones where we put our very mouths up against our anguish and hope. Looking at the whole story, this is an in-between. But in that room, that moment was all there was.
Of course, we know the whole story. Resurrection returns this child to us, the living. Did that mother feel he was always on the edge of being taken again?
Or that now, having seen the worst, did she feel he could only be safe?
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