It rained today and was about 39 degrees or so and cloudy. I can tell because I looked out the window and stepped outside. It generally helps, to step outside and look out the window.
‘I knew she was dead when you hung up the phone and began to cry,’ my little brother said. He’s six years of boy-sympathy, six years of watching, six years of seeing that the pensive bluntness he has can help.
I couldn’t watch them put her down, I couldn’t watch her die; my sort of love isn’t strong enough for that. So I stayed home and played piano through a headache and waited for my mom to call and tell me.
It rained today, did I tell you? It was about 39 degrees or so and cloudy. The Germans would say ‘bedeckt.’ I like that better, ‘bedeckt.’
It’s hard to cry, to really cry. I couldn’t cry on the phone because I don’t cry over the phone. I’m afraid of phones. You can’t cry when you’re afraid; it’s just too hard to be sad and crying and afraid and talking on the phone all at once.
There was really only a ten per cent chance of rain, really, only ten per cent, but it rained all day. I guess ten per cent is certainty. Aren’t numbers funny things? Ten per cent is certainty.
And then my mom came home and said that Saphira went as peacefully as she could and that the vet said I had done it right and that I was strong, that I had done it right by Saphira. And I knew I couldn’t have been there, not while all that was happening, because look at me now and do I look like I could have handled it? No, I’m not strong. Ten per cent chance I’m not.
It’s raining out the window right now; I might have told you. Raining like old fingers brushing against taut canvas.
And then I’m thinking again and wondering if some of learning to love is learning to let leave, and then I wonder how many different sorts of love did God need? How many? He needed to let leave so many things, things like a rebellious Israel and a broken creation and of course His Son, too, and then He needed to hold so much, and He needed to crack open the grave like an egg and let death drizzle out and turn into scrambled eggs.
Scrambled eggs are good for broken creations. They have lots of protein. Everybody knows that.
And now He gives, sometimes giving words and sometimes scrambled eggs, and I’m here listening to the rain, stumblingly learning to love, to almost love, just figuring out the beginning of the letting leave sort.
I can’t give all of my heart to Saphira, but I’ll give her ten per cent. The certain part of it.
I’ll give God all of it, even the part I gave to Saphira, because she won’t mind sharing. She really never has, and I don’t think now changes that. She’ll probably help God tease out some of the snarls, probably watch Him as He makes me all ten per cent-ly like Him.
It rained today.
(thank you, beautiful rose, for this stunning prose… every friday i will be highlighting a piece from the imperfect prose link-up. and thank you everyone for all of your kind words on my dread-lock post, and for loving me, so. i love you, too.)
*painting by e.wierenga; ‘trees in winter’ found at my etsy shop