"A Home"

    Full, determined sunlight floods the 
confines of my home. A soft honey glow lights 
the room reminding me of one my favorite times 
of the day. A sunset is soon to be upon my 
corner of the world, but for now, daylight is 
having its last say.  

My home surrounds me as a peaceful blanket of 
wholeness covers and soothes me. I am home, 
away from the busy stress of yet another 
hospital stay.

~ * ~

 She sits in my lap. Soft, quiet, unknowing, 
yet holding so many days within  her cloth 
self.  Her eyes, small and unyielding in their 
stare, remind me of my own at times. Her dress, 
perfunctory and functional, are not the things 
of little girl dreams, but of their mothers' 
realities. Her hair, uncomplicated and full, is 
close to her and not the cascading triumph of 
princesses. She is simple; she is strong. She 
is one of only a few material gifts he has ever 
given to me. Yet, he has given me so much more.

My fingers skim over the well-worn fabric. How 
many small hands have glided across this 
visage? How many tiny mothers have dressed this 
miniature child? Who were these children? 

 A knock interrupts my reverie. I pick up the 
doll and bring her with me as I walk to the 
door.

I look to see whom it might be. His smile is 
small, that of someone who knows he's being 
evaluated. My hand turns the doorknob and 
allows Mulder to enter before closing the door 
behind him.

"Hey," I say with characteristic eloquence.

He looks at me intently, more so than he had 
intended, I think.

"Scully, is everything OK?" he asks without 
giving me the reason for his visit.

I realize that he's no longer looking right at 
me, but a little off to the side in the 
direction of my hand that still holds the doll.

"Oh, " I say, acknowledging her presence. "I 
was just looking at her when you knocked."

"That's good. I think. Right?" he says with a 
little bit of a chuckle.

"Yes, it is good. I was just. . ." My voice 
trails off because I want to know more, but I'm 
afraid, afraid of asking the wrong questions, 
ones with answers too painful for a son.

"You're wondering about her? You're wondering 
about me? You're wondering why in this world of 
car seat toys that are supposed to raise your 
baby's IQ, and diaper genies that do not grant 
wishes, I would choose a worn and ancient doll 
as a gift for your child?"  he asks with a 
small smile playing across his lips. 

He's giving me an in. Do I take it?

"C'mon. Let's go sit down," he offers before I 
can make up my mind. Perhaps this is a good 
thing.

He gently reaches over and takes the doll from 
my hands as we sit next to each other on the 
couch. His gaze fall upon her as does mine and 
he begins: " This doll belonged to my mother's 
cousin Sarah, who gave it to my mother when 
Samantha was born. Sarah lived in Holland right 
about the time that Hitler decided that Jews 
were not some of his favorite people. She was 
almost six when things grew dark. Luckily, her 
father who taught at the university, had begun 
to hear rumors of round-ups and made plans to 
move the family here to the US, to stay with my 
mother's family.

"Sarah and her grandmother were always close. 
Matter of fact, this doll belonged to her 
grandmother and then was passed on to Sarah. As 
the family was making some very secretive plans 
to leave, Sarah's grandmother worried about her 
only grandchild. She wondered about how living 
in the unfamiliar and very un-Jewish  land of 
The United States would effect Sarah. She knew 
that Sarah would feel displaced, an outsider 
looking in on a foreign world, a visitor, not 
sure of where or how she fit in."

I cannot help but look up him as he pauses 
slightly. Though separated by almost six 
decades, Mulder and this little refugee cousin 
are not so dissimilar. I reach out to touch his 
hand, to remind him of a security that will 
never be far away. He takes my hand in his, 
lacing our fingers together for brief moment 
until he notices me squeezing my eyes shut in 
response to some lower back pain.

"Scully are you alright? I didn't think my 
storytelling abilities were that bad," he says 
in response.

"No, not tonight, anyway," I reply, a smile in 
my tone. "It's just that my back hurts a 
little."

"Here," he says while turning slightly toward 
me and gently shifting me until my back faces 
him. He gives me the doll to hold, while his 
hands go to work kneading and applying pressure 
to just where the pain is. I really do believe 
in the man's psychic abilities at times.

As he leans closer to me, he continues in a 
perfect, soothing rhythm, words and caresses 
melding into a delicious feast for my soul: " 
Sarah's grandmother knew that there would be 
anti-Semitic forces at just about every turn in 
her granddaughter's journey to the US, yet she 
longed to send her off with something to remind  
her of the faith of her family. She wanted to 
send her with some sort of remembrance of what 
would surely be destroyed sooner than anyone 
could imagine. And so it was with this in mind 
that Sarah's grandmother took her needle and 
thread and sent her off with a message."

He stops his kind attentions for a moment while 
his arms reach around me, to take hold of the 
doll. "Now, I'm not getting fresh," he says 
with a hint of mischief in his voice as he 
lifts the apron of the doll. "If you look 
inside the hem of the apron, where it can't be 
seen from the outside, you'll see the Hebrew 
letter 'Shin'. "

There, just as he said, was a small Hebrew 
character that looked like a "u" with a small 
branch coming from the top left and into the 
center. He took my finger and ran it over the 
almost sixty-year old thread. "The letter shin 
begins the Shema which is the passage in 
Deuteronomy that reminds Jews of all that they 
believe. It's the passage that is contained in 
the small scrolls that are inside of every 
Mezuzah that is affixed to the doorways of 
Jewish homes. Sarah couldn't bring with her 
such an outright expression of Judaism as a 
Mezuzah to remind her of home and all that she 
believed. Her grandmother, however, made sure 
that Sarah would bring a little bit of that 
home wherever she went, wherever this doll 
went."

He is quiet for just a moment before releasing 
my fingers. His arms encircle me, his hands 
coming to rest on my swelled abdomen, while his 
lips form his words close to my ear. "That's 
why I gave the doll to you, Scully. When I was 
gone, I  thought about so many things, like 
what was important and what wasn't . It really 
changed my perspective on so much.  I realized 
that home was not as important as I thought it 
was."

I stiffen at what this could mean.

He must sense my uneasiness, for he continues: 
"What was important was * you *, wherever you 
were, that's where I needed to be. The physical 
place for me, just as for Sarah, wasn't what 
held my security, my memories, my future. It 
was you, and now it is this baby, this miracle 
that you never gave up on. Wherever we are 
together, that place is home and nothing could 
ever change that."


~ * ~

Moonlight bathes in quiet peace this room that 
has seen so much of my life. Promises, 
disappointments and silent prayers have 
decorated the hours and days that have passed 
through these four walls. And while I reside 
here, I am convinced now that I truly live in 
another timeless place, a place created not 
from brick and mortar. As he cradled me 
tonight, holding a reminder of the past and 
encircling our future with his arms, Mulder 
once again gave me the gift of believing, a 
gift like the lovingly hidden message that will 
go on and on.

END

Feedback: Send a little message home to 
joemimi@prodigy.net

Thank you's once again to Georgia who not only 
opens her beta heart again and again to me, but 
who also opened her home to me. And I didn't 
even need an owl keychain to enter!