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Your Fire Magazine, November 2022

Dear Elizabeth,

I’m hiding, writing this under a tree, using it for cover. My mother’s calling me:  “Theresa! Thereeeesaaaaa!” Her voice is so small, but the hairs stand on my neck with just the slightest strains of her unwelcome wailing. She’s always wondering where I am. I know you will tell me to embrace God’s will, get praying, working, this too shall pass. But I’m not at the convent, I have been sent backwards, to the place I left long ago, to care for my elderly parents and my bad back. My head, so grey, cold and exposed without the veil. Is this God’s will? Will this pass?  I do not feel God here. I know, I shouldn’t say such things…