Yesterday it rained. It was a cool, light rain, which the earth soaked up gradually, turning our otherwise dry, dirt roads into wet, muddy roads and our yellow fields to English pastoral. Having just returned from a trip to San Francisco, where my mother complained of the long winters where it can rain for months at a time, it occurred to me how two places in the same country can be so different. Here the rain is cherished, every drop of it, because it dictates the livelihood of its people.
On this rainy Wednesday, we happened to be burying a one-hundred year old woman, Lina, who has lived in this place all of her life, and has seen more changes than one can count. The priest, during the sermon, spoke of her simplicity and what a impact her simple life had on so many people. I looked down at her still, small body from the choir loft, and thought about all the things she must have seen and experienced in her life from 1907 until her last hour on Bright Friday of 2008. Our culture does not revere the elderly as it used to. The infirm and aged are now a burden, something to put away in a home that deals with them so that we do not have to. They may be frail in body, but what wisdom they have, what stories they carry. They are like buried treasure, something we must search for to find. The way the priest read the absolution prayer over her, stopping between phrases because he was beginning to cry, I realized he had discovered that treasure, while I, too occupied with my own life, had only visited her a few times. I did not know her, but he loved her, and felt acutely the loss that her death brought about. I felt loss at that moment too, for a life I never knew.
After the service, while I was making my way back to the car, the mud was so thick that I began to sink into it in my high heels, trying to carry a stroller, a rather large diaper bag and a squirming one-year old. I felt very silly in my impractical dress - why didn't I just wear boots? Part of me was quite perturbed - Damn this mud, I thought to myself. But just as I was about to bring the heavens down on my head by cursing its fruit, I watched Baba Anna lower herself carefully into her car. Oh, what beautiful, beautiful mud. Our Bozhe has not forgotten us. He has given us this beautiful mud. What a sweet Bozhe we have. I stopped and smiled at her, suddenly feeling quite superficial and childish.
That evening most of the mud had hardened, but there were a few puddles for the taking - Sasha's favorite activity, especially when in his church clothes. We put on our wellies - mine, the signature black, his, green with froggie eyes. We jumped, we stomped, we ran through, so that there was hardly an inch of skin that was not covered with mud. Pavel squealed with delight from his stroller seeing us gallop through the water and laugh out loud. I cannot remember when I felt so free and so full of joy. And it was so simple - my children, a few mud puddles and the willingness to play. I imagine for Lina as a child and a mother it was not much different, only that the mud signified whether or not a crop would grow to its fullness. So many things pass away, but the simple joys do not.
Yes, what a wonderful Bozhe we have. He has rewarded us. He has not forgotten us.
