The Healer’s Touch — “The Last Gift”
She had turned dead still. Halfway through his story she had ceased to look at him. Outside the day had broken without much increase of light. The fire was about to extinguish. Darkness was creeping over the two.
She arose and walked over to the window. He’d have sold his leg if he’d be granted to have a look into her heart right now. Say something! he begged. Scream at me! Weep! Just don’t be so silent — so silent.
He tried to sit up, but just contracting the muscles on his belly felt as if his veins weren’t filled with poisoned blood but liquid iron. He panted, feeling like he just ran up a mountain in full armor. The gift of healing was running out. His body was deteriorating. All he could do now was beg.
“He was your husband,” he said.
She turned and looked at him, tears in her eyes. “He sent me up the mountains even before he left to meet you with the elders.”
“I would say I was a different man then, but …” His voice broke. The heat of guilt was aflame in his soul, making him sweat and suffer. “I am …” What? Sorry? How can you even think you merit forgiveness? If he could change the gift of healing for the gift of resurrection …
Her eyes were aflame as she gauged him, the murderer of her husband, the cause of her children’s demise. There was nothing more he could say. He deserved her punishment, whatever she deemed it to be. His eyes filled with tears as well. Under her fierce look he had to turn away.
He couldn’t take the guilt any longer. After all these years, he now realized, it had never left him. Every soldier he had healed, every man and woman and child he had labored to save from death — it had all been to silence this burning guilt in his heart. This fire had threatened to consume him ever since he’d been to this garden that hadn’t been of this world.
Tears dropped out of his eyes onto his chest. He didn’t dare to look at her, standing there at the window, the fire of righteous fury. Take my life. It is not enough to pay for the suffering I caused you, but it is all I have left. Take my life and throw me into the hell of my own making.
Suddenly she knelt down on the floor right next to him, her eyes still aflame, but seeking his.
“Thank you,” she said.
The Healer blinked. Thank you … for what? Giving you the chance to take revenge?
“Thank you,” she said again. “I only saw the explosion and then … how your army raided the village. I never knew what happened to him.” She pressed her lips together. “Now I know he died fighting, defending what was most precious to him. Thank you for telling me that.”
He didn’t understand. “How can you thank me. Don’t thank me. It was me, me who killed your husband.”
She shook her head. “Maybe it was you. But my husband made you pay the price for your sin already. And destiny gave you the chance and ability to heal me, the wife of the man you took from her.”
The Healer saw his vision blur in tears once more. “I am so … I took everything from you.”
“And you gave it all back.”
He shook his head. “I do not even dare to ask for your forgiveness.”
She took his hand and squeezed it. “You do not have to. I grant it.”
“How? How do you manage to …? I mean, I killed …”
“Shhhh,” she made and laid a finger over his lips.
“Nothing will give me my husband and children back. At least not while I walk this earth. You took them from me, yes, but that was a past shadow of yourself. You regretted and repented. You changed and turned from killing to healing. If someone merits my forgiveness it is you. But long ago I was taught that forgiveness is independent of whether the sinner regrets and tries to make amends or not.”
He closed his eyes, trying to let her forgiveness drive away the guilt in his heart and soul. “Thank you.” What more could he say?
She smiled and this youthful spirit returned once more to her face. “You showed me that I will see them again one day.”
He smiled and felt her forgiveness descend upon him like sinking into a warm bath of healing. But in the same measure of how his guilt was fading, his physical pain was returning. He closed his eyes and opened them again, looking at her. “I will greet them from you.”
The joy vanished from her heart and her face. She understood immediately and shook her head. “I won’t let you go. My forgiveness is yours! Please, accept it. Use your joy to strengthen your body. I will do whatever I know to heal you!”
He shook his head once. “You already healed me. My curse was to live while others perished. I couldn’t die because I still needed to be forgiven. I assume you were denied to die, because you still needed to let go of your grudge against the Father. He granted us to heal each other.
“Now it is time,” he said, “to continue our journeys where we left them. You need to live, while I pass finally the gates of death.”
Tears welled up in her eyes once more. Before they were tears of gratitude for the braveness of her husband. Now they originated in sorrow over the fading of a friend, an old enemy — the healer of her soul.
She found no words to clothe her thoughts and feelings any longer. Tears became her words as she silently wept at his bedside. She grasped his hand tighter.
The Healer awoke. He knew, for the last time. Death was creeping into his shell, a poisoned and fading tabernacle that had been given him to be an instrument for healing. He had given his gift and fulfilled the measure of its power.
Now it ran out.
He didn’t know what day it was nor what time. Everything had become a blurry haze since the pain had taken over and his thoughts become stuck as if in a dark swamp.
All he knew now, was that she was with him, there, at his side, watching, guarding, praying, weeping, hoping, … accepting.
He opened his eyes and saw her face. She smiled and he tried to return the gesture.
“It … it’s time,” he croaked with a dry throat.
She took his hand and squeezed it. Silence took the room as thorough as after the fall of heavy snow. He felt a pull as all anchors that bound him to earth were hoisted. The sails were set, the course determined.
“Farewell,” he whispered and looked up towards heaven.
Her tears took over once more. “Go in peace.” She leaned forward, their faces nearing, until their foreheads touched. “Thank you.”
He breathed out his life, and she found hers again.
