ALIVE: Chapter 96, The Last Hug

Anna smiled with maternal pride at her precious daughter who wanted to be the little mother of her community. From where did she get such instincts for she herself mothered Mary for only three short years, and of them they could converse with each other for one or two? Baby talk. Anna thought that with such a full and compassionate heart Mary would indeed become a good mother someday and hoped that she would have many children to love and care for.

Aloud Anna announced,  “I almost forgot to tell you! My sisters Mary and Zoia want to come to Jerusalem and visit you for the Passover next year. Of course their whole families will come. We must find rooms for them all while we‘re here.”

“How wonderful!” exclaimed Mary. “I’ll get to see Elizabeth and Salome again!”  Overjoyed at the prospect of seeing her cousins, Mary added, “They must be so grown up by now. How old was I the last time they came to Jerusalem?”

“Oh, I don’t know my dear. In fact, I don’t even know how old they are now.” replied Anna. Elizabeth is to be betrothed to a priest of the temple. I believe his name is Zacharias.”

“Oh, how nice! I hope they have many children together! I love children. They are so full of joy.” As she was saying that, Mary glanced at her father and suddenly felt a chill of grief because she noticed in that light that he appeared older and weak. She flashed her mother a look of curiosity and concern. Anna’s eyes caught Mary’s glance but her face was serene. Mary assumed that her mother must have already noticed how Joachim was failing and had become more familiar with this frail version of her papa.

Mary bowed her head and closed her eyes to silently pray for peace and strength for her papa. She loved him dearly. 

Meanwhile, Joachim was oblivious to this silent conversation between Mary, Anna, and the Lord. 

The angels hovering over them were weeping over the tragic need for human beings to die and become separated from those they love. Especially this little family who in their humility separated themselves from their treasured gift of a daughter. Such sacrifice. 

Gabriel spoke up and reminded the lower angels that even though Mary lived apart from her parents, she was and would always be theirs. Death never severs love, only bodies.

Yes, replied the lesser angels, but the decay of the body and impending death was something that even they, with all of their wisdom could not accept. They couldn’t imagine ever losing their angelic forms. What horror! Gabriel shrugged his angelic shoulders and flew away. 

“Let’s go for a walk.” said Mary. “Papa, is that okay with you?” Proudly puffing up his chest like a rooster Joachim replied, “Of course it is.” as he grabbed his cane to help him stand up. 

Mary smiled at her papa’s optimism and said, “Let’s go to the kitchen building and ask for a picnic lunch! Okay?”

Anna popped up and went over to stabilize Joachim. Then the little family left the comfort of the parlor and walked outside into the lush gardens. A gentle breeze passed by them as if hurrying to meet a lover and blew the ladies’ hair into their faces. Anna and Mary in syncopation brushed the hair out of their eyes.  On their way to the kitchen building the family passed the gardeners tending the ornamental flower beds, and the ones tending the herb gardens. Arriving at the kitchen Mary walked through the door first with an air of ownership and to any one of the busy cooks she announced, “Greetings!  May I have a picnic lunch for myself and my parents?” 

Anna and Joachim were proud at how cheerfully Mary was received by the cooks, with a cacophony of greetings. A short rotund woman with wide face and flushed rosy cheeks wearing a white apron smeared with the echoes of  many meals in the making walked up to the family and replied, “Anything for you my dear! So these are your parents, are they?!  Very pleased to meet you.” She wiped her hands on her apron and shook the hand of Anna. “ Don’t tell anyone I said this, but Mary is our favorite student. What would you like my dear? How about falafel wrapped in pita bread with hummus and some fruit?”

“Oh yes!” answered Mary cheerfully, “I love those. Three please!” 

“Okay darling, come back in an hour and your picnic will be ready.” The cook nodded and smiled at the parents. 

Anna and Mary thanked her in return and the trio departed. They all looked up at the sky for the position of the sun to note the time and when they should return, and then followed Mary who went down the path that led to the rose garden where there were benches, passing rows and rows of healthy ripening vegetables patiently waiting through sun and darkness, cold and heat for the knife to claim them for their purpose. 

The family arrived at the rose garden that Anna had looked forward to seeing again. The buds and blooms of pinks and reds were oh so lovely. “Let’s sit there” said Anna pointing to the larger concrete bench on the far side of the fountain.

“Okay” replied Mary and ran up to wipe it off with her hand, and then sat down and waited for her parents.

Anna was walking slowly near Joachim in case he needed her. She wondered how they would get him back up on the camel to return to Nazareth. 

When they reached the bench where Mary was waiting, Joachim was relieved and plopped down on the hard but welcomed surface. The trek from the kitchen to the rose garden was difficult and so the family sat in silence and contemplation. Anna prayed for strength and health for her beloved husband. She was only slightly younger than he, but he wore the years harder, perhaps for all the hard work, she thought.

In the silence of the holy rose garden the message flittered into Joachim’s mind about his seed freeing him from Hades and he looked across Anna at their daughter curiously. She was so full of life and joy. She didn’t seem to resent for a moment that he and her mother had sent her away to be raised by others. Joachim bowed his tired head and prayed that God’s perfect will be done in her life. 

Mary broke the silence to tell her parents something she had been thinking about for a long while. “Mama, papa I know that the reason you brought me here was to give me to the Lord.” Joachim and Anna nodded wide eyed in curiosity at what their little girl was going to tell them. “I have spent a long time worshipping the Lord, and like king David learning to trust him. I want to thank you for this life of mine, and .....” Mary started to fumble her words fearful that her parents may disagree with her announcement “I want to give my Lord and my God my whole life.” 

“Of course you do my darling” said Anna. “We all do.”

“What I mean to say is that I don’t want anything, or anyone to stand before Him in my life.....not even a husband.” 

Joachim became silently flabbergasted at that, as he wondered how, if she refused to marry, how the message about her seed could happen.

“Darling, you must do what you feel in your heart. Have you told the house mother this?”

“Yes, but she tells me that I must leave here when I am 14 years old as all the girls do. I will have to come home, and will need someone to care for me and to take care of. She told me about the nobility of motherhood. But, I can take care of you and papa there. I want to remain a Virgin forever.”

Too overwhelmed to speak, Joachim let Anna do all the talking.

“We have plenty of time to make such plans. If the Lord has taught you anything it should be to be patient, He will reveal His will to you. 

“Yes mama, I think He has. I have been observing the girls who grow up here. At fourteen they must leave the temple by law and be married. I have lost many friends, big sisters, through the years. When they come back to visit with their children, I see how they have changed, the world tarnished them with worries and conflicts. I don’t want that to happen to me.”

Joachim looked up at the sun for the time and assessed that an hour had gone by so he said, “Mary, my Mary. Run and pick up our lunch and bring it back.” “We will think better on a full stomach. Now go.” 

Mary looked up at the sun too, raised her arm to read its position confirming her father and replied, “Yes papa.” with that, Mary stood up and gave her papa a peck on his rough bearded cheek. She pivoted around and ran off.

“Oh my dear.” said Anna when Mary was out of hearing range. “This is her wish, and it’s true that we gave her to God, but how can she survive without a husband and especially without children. We can’t care for her forever from the grave. She is still very young.”

“My dear,” replied Joachim trying to calm them both down. “This is not the time to fret; didn’t she say that we who are in the world fret too much and that ...what did she say? It tarnished our trust.” 

Anna smiled at the notion that their young child was wiser than they, but she was not yet ready to let go of her concern that someday Mary would be all alone in the world with no one to love or care for her. 

In the full and active silence that ensued Joachim wondered more about the message and for the first time doubted himself. He considered that perhaps he was wrong in imagining the word about his seed. If she doesn’t marry and have children, there would be no one to carry forth his lineage. That would be a shame, thought Joachim. In fact, during all those childless years together kind Joachim never cared about his lineage as he did at that moment. It was not for himself alone, but Joachim deeply loved and honored his father and mother. He could feel them, their thoughts, their mannerisms alive inside of him, and their faith. How sad that such richness would perish from the earth with him, with Mary when she is his age and childless. Joachim shook his head as if to shake the thoughts out of it. What foolishness. What faithlessness. 

He looked up and broke the increasingly ugly silence by saying, “I’m very hungry now. Where is that little girl of ours with the falafel?”

As if on cue Mary was heard humming to herself and walking toward the rose garden.

Joachim and Anna stood up and walked over to the nearby fountain for their ceremonial hand washing before the meal.

“Ah my Mary! We thought you had gotten lost!” exclaimed her papa. 

“Here I am with a basket full. Who is hungry?” Mary set the basket down on the bench and went over to her parents at the fountain. 

At the fountain Joachim led the ceremony. He looked down, and said, “Let us bow our heads before the Lord to reflect upon His holiness and His generosity to us.” After praying silently for several moments, he added, “Let us purify our hands to touch the produce of this holy soil.” Then Joachim led his wife and daughter in the next step. Each of them took their turn to run their right hand under the water three times, and then their left hand three times. Joachim said, “Blessed are You Lord our G-d, Ruler of the universe Who has sanctified us with Your commandments and commanded us with hand washing.”

Then Joachim looked over to his holy child and asked her to recite the 23rd psalm. 

Mary solemnly with her head still bowed before the Lord, not speaking but in a melodious chant recited, ‘The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul...”

Joachim was so moved by her chant that his blue eyes filled with tears and he was grateful that his wife and daughter had their heads bowed so they would not see him this way. He surreptitiously wiped his eyes before Mary finished the psalm. The beauty of holiness, thought Joachim was more than a man in the world can contain. At that moment Joachim felt ashamed for his earlier doubt about the message. He wondered how old he had to be before he could abandon himself to the almighty wise and wonderful Creator. 

After her psalm Mary cheerfully went over to unpack her basket of goodies. “Look what they made us!” 

Joachim gazed at Mary as she was unpacking the basket to feed them, and noticed how mature Mary seems for her years. She was no longer the child he remembered her to be, but a young lady.  He sat almost in awe of his own daughter. He thought of how much he loved her, so much that he could feel his heart jumping out of his skin. How it grieved him to think he will soon leave her fatherless. But she is certainly a child of the Lord. He wondered how a girl, not a boy child could be so holy?

Anna shook him. “Joachim are you sleeping?”  

“No my dear, just thinking.”

Back in their room in the city that evening, Anna and Joachim agreed that the day together had been so wonderful and the weather so perfect. Sunny but not too hot. It was as if they were angels living in the presence of the Lord. They didn’t want the day to end. The setting of the sun was unwelcome, almost annoying. 

The next day they were allowed to take Mary into the City. She loved such excursions, to see all the people, the merchants and the children playing in the streets. Joachim felt stronger and younger that day. It seemed that he had forgotten to limp, although he clenched his cane with semi-conscious dependency. Being together within the city walls with all the activity and sounds activated the whole family as they joined in, chatting and admiring all the goods in the marketplace, jewelry, dolls, food. Stray cats scurrying at their feet. Anna found some beautiful fabric that Mary admired and they bought it together so that she could make a dress for Mary when she returned to Nazareth. Anna was so glad to have something to do for her during those quiet months away from each other. 

After a glorious week of parental love and admiration it was time for them to part. They had left Mary at the temple scores of times over the years, but a nagging sense hovering over each of them made the last moments too sad, that this would be the very last time Joachim and Mary would be together.

The caravan was to leave early in the morning, so after making all the necessary lodging arrangements for the sisters’ Passover Joachim and Anna went to the temple after supper to visit with Mary one last time. Upon entering the hallowed doors, the parents were greeted by the house mother who happened to be passing by the entrance. 

“We have come to say good bye to Mary. We will be leaving in the morning.” said Anna.

“Oh, I am so glad to have run into you like this. Let’s go into the parlor for a minute before I call her for you. Come.” And with that Joachim and Anna, curious about what Mother would have to say, turned and followed her down the dark corridors into the large empty parlor with many seatings. It was the time of evening prayers for the girls, but on that day Mother had been unable to attend for a reason other than running into Mary’s parents which was only known by the angels. 

Mother selected her favorite sofa and seating and with her hand guided Mary’s parents to the seats for them. Curious, the parents as if they were also her children obediently sat down. 

“You must know that Mary is a very special little girl.” started Mother.

“Yes, she is special to us.”

Your daughter is exceptionally humble and kind. She is of the age where we we begin to plan for their departure in their fourteenth year.

“Over the years here we have seen her blossom into a kind and compassionate  young lady who seems to radiate a special peacefulness, a yielding manner to God. Bringing her here was clearly right for her. She seems to bless us with her presence. She is so graceful. She tells us that she wishes not to marry, and we agree that the married life may not be right for her, but I don’t know if she will have a choice, and I wonder if you had already betrothed her?”

“But she is still so young?” said Joachim.

“This is the age where we must begin to make preparations for the next phase of life.” retorted the Mother.

Anna replied, “No, we have not betrothed her to anyone. And if she doesn’t want to marry, how can we? Where can a Virgin go?”

Mother answered, “She is so sweet, she teases with me often and tells me that she wants my job. But I am not so sure she would be suited to it, even in the far future. There are so many practical, administrative tasks in this role. The tasks would weigh her down and rob her of her, well, of the special piety and peacefulness that she exudes.”

I only want to ask you to think about who to betrothed her to. I know she doesn’t want this, but I see no other avenue for her. Just start thinking about it. I will get her for you now.” 

Mother seemed to be oblivious to the family dynamic that had been occurring all week, with the aging and increasing frailty of Joachim. This was not a subject that could be casually raised.

“Stay here and I will bring her. It was so good to see you again, and I’m glad we had this chance to talk. When will you return?”

“We are planning a family reunion here in Jerusalem for the Passover. My sisters and their families are coming from Bethlehem!”

“Oh, how nice. Well..” and with a handshake, Mother departed to fetch Mary.

Anna and Joachim waited in silence for their daughter to arrive. There was a lot to think about, and then again there was nothing to think about as they knew that God planned every moment of their lives, especially Mary’s to Whom she belonged.

Their daughter entered the room. They noticed that she had approached them with the appearance of one who at the same time is serene and sad. She first went over to her mother and hugged her, and then turned to Joachim into whose open arms she flew and they embraced each other with every ounce of their being. Both father and daughter fixed the moment in their hearts to retrieve whenever needed, to be reminded of their love for each other. Anna cherished their special bond. 

“Oh I am going to miss you so much papa and mama.” said Mary, as if in her heart she knew that this would be the last time she would see her beloved father while hoping her feelings were untrue. 

“I can’t wait to go home and start on your dress.” said Anna in her motherly attempt to give the somber moment a dose of worldly gladness. 

Echoing Anna’s attempt, Joachim added, “Now be a good girl and don’t give the Mother a hard time. Do whatever she asks of you.” He said that because he couldn’t think of anything else to say, that could be said aloud. His heart was in a torrent of emotion.

Mary intuited that and played along. “I will father, I promise.” 

“Now we must be off so your father can get a good night’s sleep. The journey is a difficult one. I love you. Big hug.”

Joachim knew that the following Passover he would be under the earth and not on top. He waited patiently for her to say good bye to her mother and when Mary came to him, Joachim gave his beloved daughter a very long hug, taking in a deep breath of her holy aroma, part human and part incense from the temple, to carry in his soul into Hades as a remnant of his most precious gift from God.

When Mary emerged from her father’s embrace Anna noticed a little tear spilling out of the corner of her eye and asked her what was wrong, as if she didn’t know. Mary replied, “I don’t know. I just love you two so much. Please take good care of papa for me. I will see you at Passover.”

Anna replied, “Alright, now you leave us and go to bed. I don’t think your father can leave you. Goodbye my dear. Learn well, pray for us. We will see you again soon.” Mary obediently turned and rushed off to her room to pray without looking back. 

Joachim and Anna walked away from the temple that contained their beloved daughter as they had for seven years. Only subconsciously each of them knew this wasn’t just another parting, and neither of them dared to speak of their hunch or to act as befitting occasion with wailing and weeping. 

The angels were the only ones who could silently cry. Gabriel appeared and chided them for being so short sighted.