There once was a little girl, whose daddy burnt down their home with an enormous campfire. Black hair against burning ceilings brimming with blue flame, licking cement and dry wall. He melted glass and plastic and stain-proof carpeting all down, down, down, until they became ground once more.

 

But God raised up His weary head and took notice. He stuck her daddy right in the center of his disaster, so hot there wasn’t even flame. Just charred crimson, chalky clouds of circling smoke, and dripping, liquid skin.

And He, in the shape of a man in uniform, raised her up, breathed softly– “Hush and be still, baby girl. It’s not your fault.”

Her momma was next to lift her up with hands pressed into brown curls, a soft breath, “you’re lucky.”

They sat on the edge of a lake as big as an ocean and ate peanut butter sandwiches and chips.

“The luckiest girl there ever was” napkins brushing against skin and fingers braiding hair: “Some God out there was watching you close. You make sure to thank Him good.

 

Lemme tell you a story: “Once there was four bears that lived all the way across this lake in a little bear family. There was a momma bear, a daddy bear, and two itty bitty baby bears. And one day that daddy bear built up a big old fire to burn down their forest home.
       But the fire didn’t stop. It ate up all the trees and ate up all the grass and ate up all the other little animals. Soon there was nowhere left for the momma and her babies to go, nowhere but the big, big lake. So momma bear did what momma bears do and tried to save her babies. She led them to the waters edge told them to take a breath– the biggest breath they ever took- and lept into the lake. She led the way and screamed at her babies to Swim! Swim! Swim!

 

It was hard, but she never stopped swimming and never stopped screaming and heaved herself, huffing and puffing to collapsed on the beach. But when she looked around, her babies were nowhere to be seen. The only thing there was that still endless water. She tried and tried to get back up, but her body was so tired she couldn’t even lift her head. So she let out a long, low yell that echoed all around to try to lead her babies back to her, but it was too little too late”
     

There was a delicate brush of hands, wet with tears, smoothing down hair. “Hush, Hush, Hush, I’m not done. That momma bear raised such a racket that the great god of the sky came swooping down and asked her: ‘Momma bear, why do you cry so?’ and listened to her story. That great god took her great furry head in his hands and wept with her. Then, to try to right his wrongs flew out to where those babies lay, motionless in the water and turned them in to great big islands”
     

She pointed out to two masses that lay on the horizon
       

“And came back to the momma and said 'Your children may lie here but you may keep watch of them, with them for all eternity.’ And let her rest upon the shore”
       

She patted the sand under their legs, scooped and poured it, hot with sun and breath over their calves “And promised her that not another baby would be taken from their momma on this land.” There was a press of lips on temples, cheeks and shoulders and arms that squeezed, squeezed, squeezed.