Susan LaffertyIn 2018 we travel across the Atlantic to spend a week with our daughter in Dakar, Senegal. Conversations and laughter mark our visit. Along with bright sun. Cool ocean breezes. Blue sky.
And a Door of No Return.
She’s a walking picture of brokenness.
For more than eighteen years, this daughter of Abraham suffers a spiritual disabling of her physical body. She moves through life unable to straighten up at all. Bent over, face to the ground. Seeing dirt. Rocks. Feet.
Eighteen years of facing dirt, rocks, and feet—wherever she goes.
The simple Indonesian rice bowl broke.
It was a “free with purchase of dish detergent” blue and white china bowl. So common and ordinary. A reminder of my childhood.
But it slipped from my hands, hit the marble countertop in our Delhi flat and broke in two. The last straw in a long day, week, month…year.
And I broke.
Ordinary, simple vessel on the floor in pieces.