Theotokos

"Mary... she moves behind me. She leaves her fingerprints everywhere.

Every time the snow drifts, every time the sand shifts,
Even when the night lifts, she's always there.

Jesus said "Mother, I couldn't stay another day longer."
Flies right by and leaves a kiss upon her face.

While the angels are singin' His praises in a blaze of glory.
Mary stays behind and starts cleaning up the place."
~ lyrics from "Mary" by Heart

"If... if you had known... known it all... would you have still said yes?"

Maryam rolled onto her side to face her sister, Yoninah, who was softly snoring beside her in the room Martha had fixed up for the two of them. When Yoninah had asked, she had only managed a teary nod. Yemimah had been nestled into her lap and to say any more would have prompted sobs that would have alarmed the little girl.

But there was so much she would have said... Maybe not to Yoninah, Mary, Martha, and Lazar. But to him. To her son... on the first anniversary of his birth since his death and resurrection. The unspoken words lodged in her throat and so, quietly, Maryam rose from the bed. She pulled her cloak around her and carefully exited the house, stepping into the courtyard. Tears pricked her eyes as she stared up at the sky, so similar to the night when Yeshu had been born.

Maryam tried to conjure the memory of the girl she had been when Gabriel had first appeared to her. Yes, she had wanted to help bring into the world a baby who would scatter the proud, bring down the powerful, and lift up the lowly. Her heart had leapt at the idea she could be part of God's plan to deliver her people from bondage. But there had been something else, too... The moment the angel had mentioned her son, he had become real to her. She wanted him. Not just any baby. Him. In her mind's eye, she had seen him. Seen his perfect tiny face and his beautiful curls. She had almost felt his little hand wrap around one of her fingers, she had glimpsed eyes so like her own staring up at her as she nursed him.

Maryam knew, without any doubt, that even if her younger self had glimpsed a whip, nails, a cross... she would have still said yes. Because he was God's Son, yes. But also because he was hers.

Smiling through her tears, Maryam peered up at the stars.

"I would have said yes to the trek to Bethlehem. Yes to laboring in a stable. Yes to my baby being born among sheep and cows. Yes to fleeing to Egypt. Yes to being away from my family. Yes to the sleepless nights." She giggled. "Yes to all the times you spit food at your Abi and me as we tried to wean you. Yes to all the times you snuggled against me a-and told me the 'Dark was too dark.' Yes to the stares and whispers when we returned to Nazareth. Yes to kissing away the cuts and bruises when you started learning carpentry with your Abi. Yes to the panic of losing you in the Temple. Yes to... lose... to losing Yosef and grieving him together. Yes to watching you walk into the desert. Yes to watching you begin your Abba's work... knowing, at least in part, how that would end. Yes to the trouble with your siblings. Yes to knowing you were forming another family... a family that includes everyone who knew and loved you, who believed in you. Yes to Jerusalem. Yes to... to kissing you, holding you for... for what I knew would be the last time. Yes... yes to... to the scouring. Yes to the cross, Yeshu. Yes, my boy, my love, to... to the tomb. Yes to holding you again but knowing you could not stay... Because I love you. And you love me. High as... as the sky and back again... I... I am glad you are mine, my own, my Yeshu."

Maryam closed her eyes and stood, silently weeping, for several minutes before she returned to the house and her bed. She snuggled down beside her sister and sighed deeply before drifting to sleep.

And in that sleep, she smiled as Yeshu appeared beside her and bent down to set a kiss upon her brow.

"I love you, Ama... across the earth and back again."

The End

Note: Technically, Yoninah is Yosef's youngest sister. But I think Maryam considers her as if she were her blood sister. Just wanted to make it clear I didn't forget the family tree. Maryam is an only child still.

I wrote this after seeing what I thought were some really bad takes on Maryam and agency. Seems it's kind of all the rage in some feminist circles to paint her as a victim who could never have actually said no to God and so her bearing the Messiah was coerced. I dunno but I suspect these takes are written by white ladies in comfy suburban homes who can't really imagine how a young woman in a poor, occupied town might leap at any chance to play a part in freeing her people. I don't presume that I can imagine it fully. But I was formerly a fourteen-year-old girl. And sometimes I miss her. Because I think sometimes people, even women, forget the audacity of teenage girls. I don't think Maryam said yes because she felt she had to. I think she said yes because she wanted the promise of the Messiah and, with absolutely well-founded audacity, she knew she was up to the challenge of raising him. And, yes, I believe she loved her baby before he was even conceived. She said yes to it all for herself, her people, her son, her God, and for us. It was not a decision born of coercion. It was a decision born of love and strength. So, yes, hail Maryam, full of grace.