I once won third place in a writing contest for the following. Enjoy (as I have no time this week to write something fresh.)
My chest heaves as my lungs gasp for air, the latest cough attack wracking my body. My younger brother’s strong arms support me while I catch my breath, and with the courage and tenderness only a family member can give, he wipes some of the blood from my beard.
“Are you well?” he asks, and I nod, though my eyes are fixed on the bloody fingers he’s retracting and wiping on the front of his tunic.
Slowly, my breathing normalizes, but my mind has drifted back to another time and place. I remember my mother’s fingers, as nimble and graceful as butterfly wings, weaving together the fresh papyrus basket when one of the sharp ends stabbed the tip of her index finger. A bright red bubble of blood formed quickly before she jabbed it in her mouth.
“Are you bleeding, Mama?” I asked, worry lines marking the edges of my eyes, I’m sure.
“Just a tiny bit, sweetheart. Not to worry.”
But as she continued her work, a labor of love that would offer my baby brother escape from the terror of a man intent on killing newborns, she left the tiniest streak of crimson on a green background. I was afraid that Moses would touch it and get it all over himself when she put him inside, but even though he fussed and cried, his little hands couldn’t begin to reach it. Still, when she left the house in the late afternoon in timing with the princess’ routines, my heart went with them and that little ribbon of red. I feared I would never see my brother again.
The vision shifts, and I remember the criss-cross patterns on slaves’ backs as my caring wife tended to their wounds. Life seeped between rags that failed to hold it in. Each rivulet seemed to etch itself deeper into my wife’s face until one day just before our freedom came, it sapped all her strength, and she too breathed her last.
I see that first day of our freedom again, sharp as a blade in my mind. My father’s sleeve dappled with blood as the flimsy hyssop branch he was holding dripped lamb’s blood down his arm.
“What is Grandfather doing?” my son Eleazar asked me. And for the first of many, many times, I explained to him what the Passover lamb was for.
“This blood will be our escape, son,” I patted him on the head and led him into the house beneath the blood-stained lintel where my mother was furiously chopping parsley to go over the lamb. I looked over at the fresh meat, just about to go into the boiling pot of water and oil. Strange that this poor, perfect animal’s blood would be able to protect us from the coming promised doom. I was only just beginning to understand the cost of a life, especially one bathed in sweat and tears. And to have an innocent lamb pay for it was incomprehensible.
I blink away the memories and re-focus on my brother, Moses, God’s favored one. He sees the clarity return to my eyes and smiles with relief.
“One more cough, and I was sure your lungs were going to come right out of your mouth.”
Daring to inhale deeply, I force a small smile and then push myself up to a standing position. We still have a ways to go to the top of this mountain.
Eleazar, who had run ahead with a pack on his shoulders, comes back into view. “There you two are! Is everything all right, Uncle?” I know he’s addressing Moses and yet wondering about me. It’s been over four months now that the disease has slowly taken over my breathing. Two months ago was the first time I found blood on my arm after a particularly heavy cough, and it has only gotten worse – that red liquid that has marked my journey from small child to senile old fool.
Hours pass, and the sun has nearly set by the time the three of us reach the sacred spot the Lord has whispered into Moses’ ear. Eleazar drops the pack to the dirt, and I exert great effort to suppress a cough closing in upon the edges of my lungs. My son supports me as I sink onto a nearby boulder and close my eyes while I focus on the single task of inhaling and exhaling. My end is near, I know.
“Aaron, are you ready?” Moses asks ever so gently. It’s a little surprising as our relationship hasn’t exactly been a gentle one over the years. But I trust him. We hardly knew each other when God brought us together in order to confront Pharaoh. And when he turned the Nile River into blood, it took every ounce of my willpower not to turn and run the other way away from him. But in his bold forcefulness, I trusted him.
He touches my shoulder, and I open my eyes and nod. With Eleazar’s support, I stand so Moses can remove my garments as the Lord has commanded. I most grieve the first item, the breastpiece with the 12 stones and the names of all the tribes of Israel. I feel both weightless and heavy when it no longer rests against my chest. This is followed by the frontlet and headdress, the ephod, the sash and the blue robe, made most audible by the tinkling of the little pomegranate bells around its hem. I watch as in reverse order, he places each item ceremoniously onto my son. It’s the sharp red sard stone of Reuben that most catches my eye as it shimmers in the setting sun.
It seems like yesterday I was receiving those priestly garments for the first time. Each piece had that new-fabric smell and had been specially consecrated. It almost felt wrong when Moses sacrificed that very first animal on the new altar, dipped his thumb into the mess, and drew a line across my forehead. I tilted my head back, not wanting the blood to stain the new clothes, and still, one tiny droplet managed to find its way onto the collar of the tunic.
I find that dot even now, brown and mostly faded over the years. It stands as that reminder of the promise now etched in stone – that forgiveness must and will come through the shedding of blood.
Eleazar looks handsome in my clothes, and I smile with joy even as a breeze sends chills down my spine in my light tunic here on Mount Hor.
Suddenly I feel it well up within me, the final attack. My lungs heave, and I hold my hand up to my mouth as I cough and cough, only to discover it covered in blood when I withdraw it. My head feels heavy, and I fall to the ground. Gently. My brother and son are holding me after all. My life’s journey feels complete, and I trust that the blood of the many lambs I have sacrificed will be my salvation, even as I escape the gravity of this earth.
