Alone

This is the third of seven  stories based  loosely around the passage in John's gospel (chapter 11).   My stories do not directly relate to one another, and are a work of the imagination.  The gospels give us such a limited glimpse of Lazarus - even when he takes centre stage, his is still not the leading role. Here I have delved into what I imagine could be a possible reason for the family dynamics described elsewhere in the gospel.



I was alone for the longest time.

I had never been alone before, not really. I was the middle child of three. By the time I arrived my elder sister was already asserting herself - “Baby you want this don’t you?” Baby, stop crying.” “Baby, suck your thumb!” When I was two years’ old my younger sister appeared, and briefly took the pressure off me; but quite quickly it became apparent that Mary would never pay much attention to Martha’s bossing, it was like trying to give firm instructions to the wind or the sea. So the focus came back to me.

“Lazarus! Drink your milk!”

“Lazarus! Get dressed quickly!”

“Lazarus! Help me carry this water!”

It was as if she knew no other name, at times. I would look to my mother, pleading with my eyes for some sort of rescue; but she would just smile fondly and nod in Martha’s direction, indicating that I should follow instructions. Meanwhile Mary would be in her own little world, singing the old psalms under her breath all the while.

Of course, we had not known then that Martha’s parenting skills were to become vital to our well-being. Our mother died, you see: carrying what would have been my third sibling. I don’t remember much about it, I was still so young – seven? Eight? I recall Mary and I being ushered to a neighbour’s house, and we stayed there longer than our father had given us to expect. We broke bread with them, at least twice. Mary was tired, it was past her bedtime by the time our father came for us and she had curled up on the floor, her head lying on the straw where the dog lay, thumb in her mouth, fast asleep. My father grunted a word of thanks to the hosts and scooped Mary up in his arms, holding her close and inhaling the sweet exhalations as she slept on. Then, motioning to me to follow him, he stepped out into the gloom.

When we arrived home it felt different. Everything was in its usual place, but there was an indefinable change. The air held a strange faint metallic odour– perhaps that was it. Martha stood when she might have sat, clenching and unclenching her fists as she did habitually whenever there was something she wanted to tell us – be it an admonishment or a secret: yet instead of looking into our faces her eyes were downcast. Father gently laid Mary on her pallet and she rolled away from him to the wall; then he nodded at my pallet, and I began to undress for bed. “Where’s mother?” I said to his retreating back; but not aloud. I already knew.

After that it was Martha who took over the task of raising her younger siblings and running the household; Martha who would plan and shop and cook and clean, who would count out the coins and tell Father what we could and could not afford, who would mend our clothes and tell us off. Father had always been a quiet man and now he retreated still further. He could still be tender, particularly towards Mary; but when I woke crying in the night it was Martha who would shuffle over to my bed and lie down beside me, holding my hand until my sobs turned to snivels. And it was Mary who would tell me the stories of her imagination, and make me laugh again.

By the time I was twenty years old my father had followed my mother to the grave, and our family dynamics had become set in stone. Martha, the organiser, the criticizer and, I knew, the fierce lover and protector of her siblings; Mary, the dreamer, but also the gentle listener, who never seemed to mind the reprimands from her sister; and me, the breadwinner and the muscle of the household – though if it came to a fight, most bets would be on Martha. Despite our many differences, we were a team. And it was as a team that we welcomed Jesus into our home.

He reminded me of my mother, a bit, the way he watched us performing our usual roles. Mary, sitting at his feet, drinking in every word and gesture. Martha, running around like a whirlwind, barking orders to do this and fetch that (largely ignored by Mary; dutifully carried out by me). I kind of envied Mary’s imperviousness to Martha’s demands – I would have liked to spend more time with Jesus – and I knew he knew that, from the way he watched us, with a wry smile on his face. He told Martha off one time, though – she had become so frustrated with Mary’s inactivity that she appealed to Jesus to make Mary help her in the kitchen – and he gently put her right. Spending time listening at his feet, that was the real work to be done. It took focus, as you struggled to understand what he was saying in all those stories; and then to apply it to your own life, even though that could cost you everything else you held dear. But they were the good times – sitting, full belly and wine in hand, all squashed into our little house – Jesus, his friends, my household, we were all like one family. Together.

But when I got sick, there was only Martha and Mary – and even they had to keep their distance, in fear of their own lives. It was plain as day from the start that this was the real deal, a proper illness that could maim or kill. I spent a week fighting it – burning, shivering, vomiting, pain so great I could not fathom it. I was falling into a great darkness. They sent word to fetch him, as only Jesus could help me now; but he did not come. In the end there was just Martha, her cool hand on my forehead even as she looked away to find some sweeter air to breathe. Then the darkness claimed me completely, and I knew nothing more.

Time passes differently during a period of sickness. A day can slip through the fingers, such that you are unaware of its passing. An hour can seem endless, particularly if the pain has you in its grip. I could not tell you now when I left this world to enter that other realm. I could not tell you what I did there, felt there, spoke there. All I know is that, firstly, time passed; and it felt the same as the time spent with sickness – both endless and gone in an instant. And secondly, that I felt alone.

I had always had the other, the sister, Mary or Martha or both beside me. For a short while there was also mother, and more distantly father. But it was these women who had held my hand in my night time grief, who had coaxed my darker thoughts out into bright worlds of the imagination, and who had comforted me as I lay dying. And now they were torn from my side; it did not occur to me that it was I who had left theirs.

After the call came, I sat for a timeless moment in the echoing silence. Alone, still alone. Like a morning dream that cannot be grasped by the woken mind, my brief sojourn in the darkness was stripped from me. The implacable rock that cradled what should have been my last resting place still rang with the force of his voice. I had to go out; for to stay here would be to stay forever alone, slipped between the small crack which had so recently opened up between life and death. Which state was I in, right now? Wherever it was, it had a population of one, the only one who had passed over in that direction. I was utterly alone.