Opinion | A New Mother, an Old Mother, a Love Story

“I used to be afraid,” she instructed me. However then a chaplain got here and talked to her and my father, and at last, she instructed my father: no extra. She instructed him he may nonetheless hope, and he or she would hope, too, for a miracle. However within the meantime, she stated she felt prepared and he or she wanted him to be along with her. She stated her angel had been in her room all week; she may see him as clearly as she may see me now. I considered how in Cambodia demise is simply the top of a cycle, making area to begin another time.

I helped her to the bathroom and he or she pointed to her C-section scars, all 4 of them. Then she requested if I had one. I unbuttoned my denims, pulled them down barely. “They’ve gotten higher, haven’t they?” she stated. That is the place we meet, girls and our our bodies. I instructed her the story of my daughter’s beginning in Bangkok and he or she stated, “I like that story, Rache.” I sank all the way down to my knees on the ground, laid my head on her hospital mattress beside her hip. She put her hand on me.

Then she stated, “Can I speak to you concerning the Lord? I simply must as a result of he’s my life.”

I nodded.

Jesus was on her proper aspect at that second and her guardian angel was on her left. She may see them. They didn’t speak, besides as soon as to say that every little thing could be all proper. She simply wished me to know she may see them, her angel and her Jesus, that that they had come to assist her on her journey to wherever and no matter got here subsequent.

I nodded, listening. I believed her. After all I did. We journey with our ghosts. Who higher to steer us to what comes subsequent? Our subsequent life, our heaven, the beginning of a daughter, a brand new mom, an previous one.

I understood then. She wasn’t telling me a narrative of Christianity or religion or spirituality. She wasn’t even telling me a narrative about God. She was simply telling me a love story. And I used to be a part of it.

Rachel Louise Snyder (@RLSWrites), a professor at American College, is the creator of the forthcoming memoir “Ladies We Buried, Ladies We Burned.”

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