Cosmos, Mythos and Spirit

Reflections on Spirituality in a Changing World

The Contemplative Column by Staff Writer Theodore Richards

Photo by Syd Wachs on Unsplash

“Where’s your mother?” my father asked, fumbling with his keys and, more significantly, his emotions. He couldn’t bear to go inside to look for her. So I did. She stood in the kitchen, weeping, clutching the book.

“Are you having a hard time, mom?” I asked.

“It was his favorite book,” she sobbed, showing me Sylvester and the Magic Pebble. I remembered the book well. It is the story of a donkey, Sylvester, who accidentally, magically turns himself into a rock, and the year his parents spend looking for and mourning him before he finally, miraculously returns. The book had always made her cry.

I held her for a while, sharing the unspoken knowledge that my brother would not return like Sylvester. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s go.” “I wanted to bury the book with him,” she said.

“We can do that,” I said. “It’s OK.”

And we got in the car—for the first time since my brother was born thirty-seven years before, a f…