Speaking for Ourselves. Katerina Katsarka Whitley

a mother’s sorrow? Seeing her son, her firstborn, dying on a tree, hanging there—that strong manly body hanging like a sack of bones. Hanging by the hands whose very touch was healing itself—hands now bloodied and torn.

      “They used to beg you for miracles, my son,” I cried, “and you never said no. No matter how tired you were, you stretched out your hands and healed them. Do it now, this one last time, for me, not for your sake but for mine. Heal my heart; come down from that cross and heal me.”

       (Very quietly, the whole picture still vivid in her mind.)

      He didn’t even look at me. He was absorbed in his own terrible sorrow, and I didn’t think it had to do with the pain of his body. It was that distance that came over him when he listened to his “Father,” as he put it. But that day, where was his Father? I think that his Father’s absence was behind his sorrow, and I knew it by the cries that escaped him. So the abyss opened between us, and what I remember now about that day is the darkness.

      (She remembers Luke’s presence.) What kind of darkness? Is that what you are asking? Ah, if I could only forget it . . . (Runs her hands over her face.)

      You know how lovely our nights are in Galilee. The light lingers and lingers and the dark comes softly, so you still see faces with a sweet glow on them. And then the stars are lit, low and so near and bright in the blessed sky. It was nothing like that. That is the darkness you know.

      This came suddenly, like the frightening storms over the lake; it came with a groan, like an angry curse, and covered everything with menace. The sun’s light failed.

      You look perplexed. It was the middle of the day, you see, and the sun’s light failed. I cringe to tell you what I thought then. A good daughter of Judah doesn’t think in such terms. “God is dead,” I wailed, and it must have been at that moment that his soul left his body.

       (Pauses. Her voice changes, trying to become matter-of-fact, but as she describes the scene, it reaches a crescendo.)

      There was a crowd around the crosses, and the crazed Roman soldiers and all, but especially those Romans, were deathly frightened. The others, our own, were beating their breasts. They, who moments before were abusing him, were now running away with screams, asking God not to punish them for their evil deed. Curses and shameful words filled the air, and I don’t know who was crying—maybe it was me—but I can still hear the lament.

      “Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never suckled.” Later John told me that, because of the noise and fear, the crowds missed hearing the most loving words from the cross: “Father, forgive them,” he had cried, “for they know not what they do.” And all of us have been drawing comfort from that ever since.

      But during those three hours the darkness was winning, and I kept remembering a psalm. I think I heard him cry it out, but John was leading me away by then, so as not to see the final agony. I remembered how Joseph used to teach him the Psalms. Once was enough—Jesus memorized them and delighted in them. He went about his chores repeating them, his lovely eyes with that secret light of understanding in them, full of their meaning, but that psalm made him so quiet. “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani”; “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” he asked in pain and wonder, and I realized then that I had been asking the same thing. Why have you forsaken me, my son? That is when all abandoned the watch and turned in despair and fled. There was nothing left to live for.

       (She is recalled to the present.)

      But I am running ahead of my story. You see, Luke, I have not spoken of this to anyone in years.

      Even the glory afterward did not diminish the pain of that day at the foot of the cross. Do you know that in moments of such terror and sorrow you remember so much of your life that you think eternity has passed? When I heard him cry out in thirst from the cross, I relived that day in Cana. You’ve heard of it? Well, it’s all true. But what you don’t know is that I went a-meddling. (She smiles. This memory is pleasant.)

      I was so proud of him, and the wedding family were close friends. “Do something,” I told him. “They have run out of wine.” But what I really meant was: It is because of you that the place is running over with uninvited guests. They are the crowds that follow you.

      But he only looked at me. Then he said, “My time has not yet come,” and that’s what I remembered under the cross. “Now,” I cried, “now your time has come, and it is full of terror, and for what?”

      And then it all came back to me. You and I have talked of this before, Luke, when I told you of his early years. But I didn’t tell you that when Gabriel first appeared to me, I wanted to run and hide. For as soon as I said, “Let it be to me according to your word,” I knew that one day it would lead to this. And my foolish heart asked, “What if I had said no to Gabriel, would it have ended differently?”

      (Her voice breaks.) You see, my Brother Luke, it takes a lifetime to learn that we can’t hide from the Almighty. We can’t change him, and we can’t stop him.

      “And a sword shall pierce your own soul also,” old Simeon had said, and I remembered. But I had not ever suspected it would be with this much pain.

       (She pauses. Listens to Luke’s question and seems startled.)

      What, what is that you ask? Ah Luke, you ask such hard questions. Did I feel it was my son dying on that cross? I’ve told you this before. What hurt most bitterly during his lifetime was this—the knowledge that he wasn’t my own. “You opened me up,” my heart cried to the Lord. “You used me like a vessel, you emptied me, and then you threw me away and let him go his way, and he belonged to everyone but me.”

      It isn’t an easy truth for a mother to bear. You want to know what helped? You will laugh, because it is so simple. It wasn’t prayer, and it wasn’t even the joy of his resurrection; it was John, my sweet, borrowed son. I left this for last because it is such a treasured moment.

      As I told you, next to his pain the worst knowledge was that there was no hope. I begged for a quick death for him and for me. And then I heard his voice. “Woman,” he said in that expression that always made me feel that I was all women and he honored them in me. “Woman, this is now your son,” and he looked at John. “Ah,” I cried, “you thought of me in the midst of your pain. I am not forsaken.” And some of the burden lifted. “And this is now your mother,” he told John, and that loving soul never forgot it. You see? (She looks at Luke and waits.)