Susan LaffertyShe’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 early 1960s in Indonesia were years of political upheaval. The Communist party was strong and growing in power. There were protest marches in our city against Malaysia and against the British.
I remember the air raid drills in Surabaya when I was 4 or 5 years old. The siren would blow and every light had to be turned off. We sat in the dark until the siren blew again. If it happened during dinner time, Mom put a sock over a flashlight and fed my baby brother by its faint glow.