For someone who is waiting for his beloved to come home, every day seems like an eternity. What if it is uncertain that the beloved will ever come back? Such was Gabriel’s state. Gabriel wondered if perhaps Joyce would never come back. Looking at his wife, connected to so many machines, and waiting for her to come back to him. He was longing, sad…
***
Joyce was back home at a beloved spot in her village – a place that had a special place in her heart since she was a little girl. It was where the houses stopped, and the footpath began. The road was so small and narrow and all around were fields of mostly wild grass and wildflowers like Mary’s incense also known as Persian cyclamen; it has heart-shaped light green leaves, cup-shaped with white petals and a pinkish purple bottom and a beautiful smell like incense. Beautiful yellow chrysanthemum were everywhere along with the white marguerite daisy, pink or white dianthus strictus, heartsease flowers with their white petals tinged with yellow and deep violet, wild corn poppies with their bright red color and dark black heart, the narcissus with its heavenly fragrance, white petals and deep yellow center, little yellow Bermuda buttercups and add to all these the fragrance of orange and lemon tree blossoms and try to imagine the unearthly fragrance that filled the place.
You could also see some occasional tall, thin deep dark green cypress trees or happy light green pine trees spreading up there against the blue sky like green umbrellas or silver green olive trees and sometimes proud cedar trees reaching up to heaven, standing there since forever with their justifiable pride, as if they knew somehow that their ancestors had given up their bodies to build king Solomon’s temple.
Joyce loved the olive trees best: They looked so humble yet so beautiful, and their leaves’ shape and color were very unique; truly blessed is the olive tree, perhaps because Jesus blessed it when He spent the night before His crucifixion – His last night on earth – praying in the olive trees’ garden, the garden of Gethsemane . She reflected that there is nothing more beautiful than walking in a grove of olive trees in the moonlight, where the wind softly moves the little delicate leaves which shine like silver under the moonlight and smell like incense.
That place which Joyce loved, was very quiet and calm, the air there was so fresh and clean, Joyce was there, eight years old on this day, a little girl sitting between the tall grass with a needle and thread. She picked a yellow wildflower and put the needle in its center and pushed it down; later she picked a white flower, then red, then back to yellow and so on. She was making a flower necklace to put on our Blessed Mother’s picture at home.
While making the necklace, she sang. Then she looked up through the tall grass and saw her little sister dancing around in circles in the middle of the fields and laughing while touching with her little fingers the tip of the grass.
Joyce stopped singing and began laughing too.
“Come Joyce, come dance with me. Put your necklace aside for a moment and come dance! Ha… ha… ha… dance!”
Joyce put her needle and flowers neatly aside and jumped up to join her sister. She began turning in circles, her head up, eyes looking at the clear blue sky and her little fingers touching the soft blades of the grass.
Suddenly something changed. She was still turning with her head up; her hand was in someone else’s hand… She looked and saw her handsome Gabriel dancing with her on their wedding day. She was wearing her long round gown of white, dancing, still turning, hearing a song “Around the world I’ve searched for you… I traveled on when hope was gone to keep a rendezvous.”