"Now, I won't get dead," Jack announces. "Like some people get dead, I won't get dead." Faith and fact the same to him, he raises both eyebrows, "THAT a good point."
My Dad's kitty died. Just sort of disappeared for all Jack knew. No one noticed. And still, I told him. "Honey, the kitty's dead." In a fumbling sort of hopeful way the story of Jesus and dying, sin and salvation tumbled out. A miracle unspooled there on the bed all gossamer and delicate.
"Do you want to pray about it?" He stares at me. I want to repeat it. I wait.
"Well..." he eyes the ceiling, "that mean I will die?" It's as if he's never considered this. "You pray for me."
In a counterpoint of mother and child we weave ideas. Grace and wickedness, fresh as the dawn, brush against each other. In the afternoon sun my man-child becomes a child of God. I want to hold my breath and not rumple those first understandings. I'm swamped in the simplicity: God died. For me.
"God DIED for me!" When in doubt he shouts. And the whole room shatters into a million tiny slips of ideas like chaff blown away.
Great-hearted. That boy is great-hearted.
ReplyDeleteI love the expression on his face in the second picture. I remember my heart rejoicing like that when I became a child of God.
ReplyDelete