Her pain is real and powerful and now.
Activating withdrawal protocol practiced thousands of times from the very beginning, for survival in a war zone where the threat was always near.
Where is the soldier-father who gives of himself to protect his little girl and her livelihood?
He sees only his own needs.
He has insufficient fortitude, insufficient courage, insufficient strength.
He won’t stand up.
He lashes out.
And indulges.
To dull his piercing hunger he takes the very flesh of those he should protect.
Pain on pain compounding.
What a tragedy.
Where is the hen-mother who covers her children with her warmth, even as the cold presses upon her?
She is busy hedging the fear
and then pruning the hedges.
She is gazing at a map that only shows her what has already past.
She will attend to the chaos when the storm passes.
Her children pass by instead, the storm now inside. Their inheritance.
What a burden.
What a waste, she says.
Still, somehow
The little girl who was given so little, and from whom so much was taken, grows into a woman who can give.
She empties her purse of her pennies and finds it is not empty.
It is a miraculous offering.
Tiny seeds tumble into fertile lives and the light green magic of love roots and shoots through the generations.
From not-enough comes something new.
Love eternally returns.