!Third day of Christmas
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agk's diary
27 Dec 2023 @ 11:41 UTC
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written on GPD Win 1
in bed after cut from work this shift
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In the rush of the season I never wrote about the
last two orientations of Advent, joy and love.
First daughter and I lit their candles, Pastor Lori
preached on them as disciplines or practices, not
moods or prayers.
Miryam went to her cousin's house when hers was
bombed, killing 11 members of her family: mother,
grandmother, siblings, cousins, nieces, nephews.
Her boyfriend Yusuf knew where she planned to go
but couldn't join her. He loaded dead and soon-to-
die people on ambulances night in night out, empty
stomach gnawing, his own wounds failing to heal.
Miryam's elderly cousin was pregnant, somehow. She
drank tea of scrap iron soaked in tepid brackish
water with a splash of vinegar, and lived in a
farm outbuilding with her husband since fleeing
their house. Even here, sleep was hard due to the
constant buzz of drones, nightly small earthquakes,
roar of D9 bulldozers and tanks.
Miryam's cousin's name means my God is abundance.
She planned to name her son Yahya ibn Zakariya
after Yahya Sinwar. She fingered the old house key
inherited from her mother, worn on an old necklace
close to her heart. She knew with her whole being
her son, merciful God's gift, would make a way in
the wilderness.
As she opened the door to haggard Miryam, her Yahya
leapt in her womb. Her heart overflowed with joy
and love. Shorter and more pregnant than Miryam,
she threw her arms around her favorite cousin.
You live! You're pregnant! Oh come in, come in! God
is great!
Three months later Miryam's son was born preterm in
a car after the UN school where she'd been staying
was bombed. A shepherd, flocks long-gone, sat out-
side in cold rain so she could sleep. Her tiny
helpless baby latched to her young breast, dozed
every few suckles. Miryam'd never been more
exhausted, but she was somehow entirely unafraid.
As she shivered and rain streaked the windows and
windshield of the flat-tired car in block 112 of
Khan Yunis where she rested, Miryam kept all these
things and treasured them in her heart.
She slept. Unknown to all, a determined aid deleg-
ation from Iran spoke on Signal with Yoav Gallant
and Itamir Gen-Gvir. All parties'll deny the talks
happened. Trucks would soon transit an unofficial
crossing. No promises they'd not be killed, cargo
destroyed; gifts of cooking fuel, flour, walnuts,
dates, citrus, coffee, olive oil, water, essential
drugs from the sanctioned to the beseiged.
A Liberian-flagged cargo vessel approached the
treacherous Cape of Good Hope, summer storm threat-
ening. At the bridge, in the engine room, in their
berths, without knowing what each other were doing,
the whole crew of many nationalities prayed as one.
Entrenched in shattered forests among artillery's
hateful boom, cold tired soldiers prayed. Millions
of prisoners and dozens of hostages all around the
world prayed.
In my living room, first daughter dropped dry-
roasted goobers on my spread of playing cards. I
got the six of spades into the middle of the table
before Mr. Chris could. Damnit! he cursed. No nuts
on the cards, I told first daughter. Pick 'em up. I
flipped three cards from my stock.
Every child born may be the one who redeems us from
the unfixable messes we've made. May we shield them
from Herod, raise them as best we know how, live in
the expectancy of Advent year-round. Merry third
day of Christmas.
