A Legacy of Questions

How can I think about romance now? Because, like it or not, I have to.

***

Though we have wept and grieved together, my father can’t possibly share my level of loss because he isn’t truly empty. Not that he didn’t love my mother—he did. He had a great passion and love for her. But, in the long run, he was always closer to The One, The One he always talks about, The One who visits from time to time and gives him all those visions.

As for Dad, he valued his own life above Mama’s more than a few times and risked her being taken to another man’s bed. The One had saved her from that: it was, in fact, The One, because Dad had lied about even being married to Mama in order to save his own skin (because he was scared). Mama was the most beautiful woman anyone had ever seen (even in her old age) and, on two separate occasions, different kings had asked for her as a wife. So Dad lied, said he was her brother, let each of them take her, each in his own timeframe and particular development of events, and then prayed.

The One had sent a horrid plague on one king before he could touch her, resulting in Mama’s immediate release; and The One had appeared in person to the other king in a dream, telling him that Mama wasn’t Daddy’s sister like he had said, and that The One would kill him if he laid a hand on Mama, which also resulted in Mama’s immediate release. 

There’s no question in my mind that Dad would readily give his life for The One, but he’s just not that close to anyone else, maybe not even himself. How dissimilar we are!

***

He has tried with me. I know he has encounters with The One—I was there for one of them. But what I remember most about that day was being duped into lugging a huge pile of wood up a mountain to make one of the sacrifices Dad often makes. (Mama thought we were going to have some father-son time and that I was going to learn more about The One.) Had I been older, I would have seen what was coming much sooner than I did. 

By the time I said, “Wait a minute, where’s the lamb?” it was too late to avoid the gnarly, old, yet very strong, muscular arms and hands that wittingly grasped themselves around my tender young wrists. What I lacked in strength, he had more than enough of in strength, experience and cunning—I was bound and on top of the wood I had lugged all the way up that mountain before I had a chance to so much as comprehend my situation.  

When he pulled his sharpened knife out of its place, I learned what terrified meant. I had seen him use it too many times on sheep and goats. Looking back, I also unconsciously noticed fear in his old shepherd-man’s eyes. 

—Then the voice came. The voice of The One. I was being rescued by the intervention of The One, though in a different way than Mama had been. I bonded more with her over recounting that experience than I ever did with Dad. And I had questions, lots of questions in my mind.

The kinds of answers he spoke did not relate to the questions that I had. He said The One had given him a vision that what he did was a sign for generations to come, a sign of a real sacrifice of a son who would carry wood up a mountain and be sacrificed upon the wood he bore. That one, Dad said, would die as a sacrifice for our people. And, he said, The One would raise him from the dead. Needless to say, Dad had not shared this vision with either Mama or me prior to raising the knife.

Dad strictly charged me that I was to tell this vision and recount the encounter, along with all the other visions and encounters that he had already made me memorize, to my children and to make sure that they told it to their children and that it was passed down to their children’s children, and so forth, in perpetuity. We would carve it into his shepherd’s staff and add it to the song of our people that we sang almost daily. 

That was important.

Nonetheless, important though it was (and I would do what Dad said without doubt or dispute, since I had heard the voice too), it did not impact the decision that I made that day: I did not want to have visions like my Dad did, nor did I wish to have the same kinds of encounters he did with The One. 

Again, it’s not that I doubted his visions and encounters. I didn’t and I don’t. But I’ve seen the cost, and it scares me. So I resolved to worship The One in my own way, not Dad’s. I would bring my sacrifices and He would accept them. Sheep, not people.

***

Well, Mama had her own prophetic vision, but it didn’t kick in until Dad was already up the mountain and nowhere to be seen near our tents. She met us before we arrived back at camp. She’d been running hard, was panting, out of breath. She grabbed me and held me close, even though she was soaked in sweat from the heat. I think the nicest thing she said to Dad over the next few days was along the lines of, “How could you, you stupid beast?”

Of course, she knew he was jealous of me, though he wouldn’t admit it. I was Mama’s pet, and we all knew that. But, after the altar incident, whenever he asked me if I didn’t want to go hunt “like a man”, I just said, “No, we have plenty of sheep to tend. I want to stay here and protect the camp like a man.” Mama and I built an altar for sacrifice in the camp, and that was that.

When things had simmered down, he tried explaining to her that what The One had had him do was symbolic, a sign for the children to come, my children, a sign of the one who would die as a one-time sacrifice for our people. Mama held her peace at that and didn’t interfere with him adding it to the song, but the next time he wanted to take me with him, she said, “over my dead body,” and we all knew she meant it. I wish she hadn’t said it now, though.

But she was a lioness when it came to me. She always told me I was the light of her life, and I knew it was true. She was the light of my life, too. There was nothing I wouldn’t have done for her. She hugged me every day, kissed my cheeks, held me close and told me how wonderful I was. Sometimes she’d say, “Come be my baby again,” and have me sit in her lap for just a moment, even after I was grown. I didn’t mind. I loved it. I loved having her cook my favorite foods for me and telling me all the stories of Dad and her. I always preferred her version anyway. She was the source of life for me. How can I reimagine my life?

***

My little mama had been ninety-one years old when she had me. It was past her time. In fact, she’d given up and enticed Dad to sleep with the maid, since he was so keen on progeny. That had backfired in her face, but she put up with it for Dad’s sake.

Until I came. The maid should have stuck to making her little snide comments off to the side about Mama, because when she and her son set their sights on me, they didn’t get a second chance. My lioness-mama kicked them out into the desert for making fun of me. She said she wanted the camp clean for her son. 

At first Dad tried to say no and take it back, but then he had another vision where The One said to listen to Mama and do just what she said (best vision he ever had, if you ask me).

***

Mama prepared a tent for me and my future bride. She said how lucky my wife-to-be would be to have someone like me. All I knew was I would give my all to the girl I married and risk my life for her if I needed to. I also knew that I would still be just as devoted to Mama as ever, and so would my new bride. 

Mama and Dad decided to send Eliezer (the steward of their affairs) back to their kinsfolk in Mesopotamia to find a decent, suitable wife to bring into our camp for me. Two days after he left, though, my Mama traded my arms for those of The One. It was too late to call Eliezer back, although there were certainly no guarantees he was going to find a girl willing to trust him enough to come all the way to Canaan to marry someone she’d never even met.

And now here she comes, riding on a camel. And here I am, freshly cut all the way down to the core. What can I say? Thanks for coming? Or just greet her with ‘Shalom’, the greeting of our people?

If she sees how grief-stricken I am on meeting her the first time, it will just leave her full of questions, even as I have been full of questions all my life, whenever my father was involved. Now here I am, stepping into his shoes.

No! I am going to smile, to fix my face. I can hear my sweet mama’s voice now, saying, “Son, you smile, be polite, be a mensch—tell her she’s amazing and how thankful you are that she came. Be sweet and good to her like you were to me. Be the father of our nation.” I decide to do this as hot tears spring fresh to my eyes, unwelcome and rude though they are.

Yet I force a smile onto my surprised face in the nick of time before we intercept each other. She’s come too far not to accept me. But when she sees my eyes, she’ll have questions, my father’s legacy.