My Father’s Books

Prayer

121­ Prayer In her later years, when the quiet sun­ set drew near her, after she had setherchil­ drenontheirway,aftershehadwel­ comedher­ daughters-in-law and de­ lighted in her grand­ chil­ dren and ­ great-grandchildren, after my­ father died, my ­ mother began to feel deep ­ within her that the time had come to re­ turn com­ pletely and eter­ nally to God. Not that she had dis­ tanced her­ self from God in years past. God could not be far from her life; that was her fate, ­ though she ex­ pe­ ri­ enced it more sub­ con­ sciously than con­ sciously. After all, ­ hadn’t she al­ ways said that God him­ self had given her life only so that she could save her chil­ dren? In her life­ time she had given birth to many chil­ dren, but she had lost many as well.­ Cursed life. She strug­ gled with di­ vine ­ strength to con­ quer the life that was fated for her. And so, ­ Mother’s se­ cret but last­ ing piety re­ turned, re­ awak­ ened, not as a debt to be re­ paid to her ear­ lier faith but as holy sub­ mis­ sion to her lone­ li­ ness in all its mys­ ter­ i­ ous forms. She re­ turned, fi­ nally, to her­ prayers. She ­ prayed reg­ u­ larly and with de­ vo­ tion. Ear­ lier, when she was at the peak of her phys­ i­ cal ­ strength and the whole house ­ weighed on her shoul­ ders, the fam­ ily rou­ tine it­ self ­ seemed to be her daily, con­ stant­ prayer. But now she was dis­ cov­ er­ ing a new di­ men­ sion to her ­ prayers with which she held back her great lone­ li­ ness and the si­ lence. She in­ tensely be­ lieved that ­ through ­ prayer she was ­ closer to her peo­ ple, those who van­ ished on the other side of the bor­ der, whom she never saw. In her mo­ ments of transcen­ dent ­ prayer my ­ mother ­ seemed to ­ travel out of her body, ­ across the bor­ der; now she was with her kin, her clos­ est fam­ ily ­ brought back to life. In fer­ vent ­ prayer, in se­ cret whis­ pers that over­ took the quiet, my ­ mother told her peo­ ple her un­ spoken words, words held in and ­ shaped over more than half a cen­ tury. 122 At times, ­ prayer ­ filled my ­ mother as a gen­ tle in­ fu­ sion of si­ lence it­ self, a pro­ found en­ coun­ ter with all di­ men­ sions of her ex­ is­ tence. Her clos­ est fam­ ily, van­ ished long ago, vis­ ited her in her great, dream­ like­ prayer, where at times she was more ­ present than in life it­ self. My ­ mother re­ mained de­ vot­ edly faith­ ful—she could not have been more so—to her great ­ prayer as she sat by ­ Father’s ­ lonely books. This was her sa­ cred time, the lost Bal­ kan time, which she alone could bring back ­ through ­ prayer. ­ Through ­ prayer she ­ quietly ­ evoked all those she loved. As soon as they left her quie­ tude, pass­ ing ­ through the ­ warmth of her heart, her words were ­ endowed with some sort of ho­ li­ ness. Then, more than at any time be­ fore, my ­ mother was close, clos­ est, to God. Her body was trans­ formed into ­ spirit, crys­ tal­ line, her­ prayer—her con­ nec­ tion with God. At that time my ­ mother be­ lieved in the ho­ li­ ness of her ­ prayer life and in its power to con­ nect her to all the di­ men­ sions of time and the exits from it. Her ­ prayer re­ stored to her all her time un­ lived with her clos­ est fam­ ily—the dead, the liv­ ing, and those out of reach. In her ­ prayer my ­ mother often whis­ pered lines from ­ Father’s books, still open from the very day of his pass­ ing. My ­ mother’s ­ prayer, in a man­ ner under­ stand­ able to her alone, re­ vived ­ Father’s pres­ ence ­ through his liv­ ing books. She knew well, and often as­ sured us chil­ dren, that all ­ prayers reach one God, what­ ever his name might be. At the sun­ set of her life, ­ Mother man­ aged to draw enor­ mous en­ ergy from all her ­ prayers ­ through her great and con­ tin­ ued sac­ ri­ fice. My ­ mother had only...