Great Arsonist.

I moved a mattress onto the office floor the week she died. I needed to be alone with my thoughts, alone with my grief, to sob to sleep out of ear’s reach. No interruptions, no noise. Just me, my blanket, the wall. Hours, days, sleep and silence. We were barely out of summer, but the days seemed cold, the nights colder. She was living in the endless summer she had spoken of, while my heart had landed in an ice cold winter. 

I hoped I would heal with time, so I prayed the hours would move along faster. But they didn’t, so I left. I made my way out of town to a friend’s farm where I could feel far away from myself, my blanket, the wall. I fell into the air that smelled like green, closed my eyes and inhaled the cool wind. Somehow the aloneness of that place helped me to escape the loneliness of life at home, surrounded by people that weren’t her. As I sat under that pine up the avenue, I watched the skies, the fields, the hills. I watched as that very same air that was in my lungs, was there above, ushering the gray formations across the sky and beckoning the trees to lean to the north, while I felt it so softly breathe on my bare legs. Cold. Even in my apathy, I grew uncomfortable enough to ready myself to return to the solace of the indoors, until the sun peeked out just in time, to settle on my face and my goosebump skin. A yellow blanket placed upon me, hillside, my permission to not hurry away. There, with that shivering breeze and those gray insides, I was given new life and felt the Lord speak promise into my heart. He who I questioned in the darkest hour was here, smiling upon me with warmth, assuring me with his closeness. 

Here, with no cause to run, I had time. There was room for accusations and reckonings and reasonings, but, instead, a great hush fell. I understood that his priority was not for me to understand. It was to be held. I sensed my God, leading me gently, to recognise his sweet voice in the moment I had just experienced. He was the warmth after the cold wind, my rescue from this icy, gray, body of death. He was resurrecting me. I saw him breathing on the glowing coals of a fire all burnt out and knew that, in time, he would save me from this death - and would restore me not only to a small flame sort of a life, but like a house on fire, I would truly live again.

I soon returned home, to my mattress, with my blanket, my wall. Cold, still, but not alone. I welcomed him in, the only friend I could allow to interrupt my silence.