Redemption

I can hardly remember the days that have passed. They have bent and blended into a picture like I made as a child, my hands thick with paint, palms sweeping back and forth across waste canvas. The colors smeared until they disappeared among themselves, so stuffed with pigment that nothing stood out alone. That was how I felt - so stuffed full of things no one particular thing could be sensed more than any other.

Tired was an understatement, though even that seemed a surreal state of mind more than a physical attribute. The influx of people heading for the greener hue of pasture was dwindling, and soon I would begin my journey to find my home. I knew I would not forget Aunt Connie, though her memory would remain shrouded in the haze of aftermath for some time to come.

Aunt Connee sat beside me on the platform winding gauzy cloth for bandages. We both were staring at the charred landscape, staring at it as if it was another world and we were just observers. She asked me if I wanted Him to come, and without another thought I closed my eyes and felt the warmth of tears fill the slits of lids. I admitted I had hoped He would come searching for me, but as soon as that left my heart and lips I added that I would never want Him to leave all that is precious to Him. His family, His men, His friends, the woman who makes His heart sing.

Torment. Wanting to be missed and looked for, just...for a moment of thought. And then I felt selfish. Saying it out loud seemed to unlock the vice like press of emotions that gripped my heart, and suddenly there were so many things I needed to share with Him, that finding Him just could not happen fast enough. Connee must have sensed it, for the next morning she sent me off without even letting me assist her with breakfast.

I didn't argue.

It took most of the day to make my way through the tangled haphazard arrangement of wagons. Eventually they became more orderly, settled in loose figurations of family and friends. I found the vulo wagon first, and the rest in quick succession. A smoky gray dimmed their colors and the acrid scent still clung to the canvas, but they were a beautiful sight to my eyes. It didn't take long then to find the main camp, and too, the cool fresh air that bathed the nearby stream. It would be here that my heart's hope would find both flight and home. There in the lush carpet of grass, with air fed by the song of voices...I found my Master and the Artisan.

It is the little things...really...that make all the difference in the world. It is the welcome in the depths of eyes, the tender touch to a cheek, the relief that seeps from every pore and fills the earth with happiness. It is interest and concern, and taking that extra step to say...I care. My cup overflowed tonight...filled with the compassion of my Master and His Seveya. It melted the numb, held the hole with Dee's name upon it, and bandaged my heart.

I am blessed.