Saving Elijah

few people willing to listen, now that what we need most is to have someone to receive our story and accept it, no matter how disquieting the story is. It's really quite simple. It's also part of the reason rabbis and priests are in business."
    "And psychologists," I said. "I used to be a psychologist."
    He nodded. "Come and sit down. I'd like to hear."
    "I don't even know where to begin."
    "Begin in the most important place."
    His face was kind. I knew he had sat at many bedsides, and held many hands, and said many Mi Shebeirakh, prayers for healing, and heard many horrific tales of sorrow and loss. I also knew he had heard no tale like mine.
    We sat down again on the bench. "My son Elijah, he was very ill. He was in a coma."

    *    *    *

    By the time I finished telling him the story, the rabbi and I had been sitting there for several hours. I was out of breath and energy, exhausted with the telling.
    He was silent for a while, then spoke the first few words he had spoken. "Do you know that tale your ghost told you about the two ghosts being overheard in a cemetery talking about the rain and the crops? That's a midrash, you know."
    "The ghost told me it was just a story."
    "Well, that's kind of what a midrash is. A story. But your ghost didn't tell you the end. After the man who overhears the ghosts uses the inside information to save his own crops, the two ghosts decide to stop talking. Because they realize that what they've been saying to each other has become known among the living."
    "And that's not a good thing?"
    "I don't know. What do you think? Is it?"
    I didn't know how to answer so I said, "You sound like a therapist."
    He smiled. "When in doubt, always answer a question with a question. It's getting hot, maybe you should tell me the rest in my office."
    "I've been in your office, you know." I had described his office earlier, the way I knew it in my visions.
    He stood up now and stretched. "So you said. I admit you've described it accurately."
    "Then you believe me."
    "Does it matter to you if I believe?" he asked, looking down at me.
    I tried to smile. "I don't know? What do you think? Should it?"
    "Not really," he said, sitting down again. Then, "I'll answer the question this way, Dinah. My mother's parents had been religious people back in Poland, but my mother wanted to leave all that behind when the family immigrated, and by the time my brother and I came along the only traditions my mother was keeping were gastronomic. She used my grandmother's recipes. To her death, my mother was not a believer. She was absolutely convinced that God was a fairy tale. Especially after Hitler. But, you know, she was a great cook. I mean great! Do you know who convinced me that God exists, absolutely?"
    I shook my head.
    "My mother. I was in high school and I was working after school at a plant nursery one day a week. I wouldn't take the time to eat that evening, I had to get right to work because I had a history paper due the next day. It was three o'clock in the morning when I finally finished. I went downstairs, hungry enough to eat nails, and sitting right there on a shelf in the refrigerator, I found that my mother had made up a plate for me. On it was her stuffed cabbage, which I loved, and some of her wonderful roasted potatoes, and green beans. She'd wrapped the whole thing in waxed paper, and there was a little note taped to the top with instructions as to how I could heat it up—microwave ovens were still years away—and a little message from her. I still remember the way my mother's handwriting looked. 'Dear Jake, the history scholar: Thought you might get hungry later. Love, Mom.'"
    He smiled. "And that was the moment when I first truly felt the presence of God. I felt it in my mother's absolute love for me. I found her love in that plate, in that cabbage and those beans and potatoes, and that plate represented traditions of our people, that plate was the link all the way back, generations and generations. Objectively speaking, nothing had happened. But I'm convinced that God was there regardless of whether you believe He was there or not. Do you see what I mean?"
    "I see." I waited a moment. "I'm sorry. I've taken so much of your time, I must be keeping you from something."
    He bowed his head and muttered something. A prayer, maybe. For making such a bargain, perhaps I needed a prayer.
    "Do you love your husband, Dinah?" he asked, looking me in the eye.
    "He is my life." I put my head in my