Surrender With Me

Our town was baptized in the flood that year and the swelling of the river unearthed relics from long before men settled in these parts. That same year I buried my wife and infant son, both lost in birth. Months after they were gone, our train of ragged coaches met the elbow of that great river, and upon our manifest of provisions and mouths, we would continue no further and abide where we stood. Two dozen families in wheeled shelters began to fish and hunt and gather wood for burning and wood for building. The men were strong and fleet and they fashioned homesteads and fencing and a great church for the preacher to tout fable and promise. He carried his book with him and went about our nascent village to bless homes and new mothers alike. His robes and hat threadbare and humble but black and foreboding as a doctor of the plague. Coming to me one evening, he spoke of the beyond and the blissful eternity in which I was to one day join my love. He spoke quickly and firmly and I nodded and thought of her in a gown of white with our son in her arms and they were both searching waters just miles away as if awaiting a vessel. I offered this vision to the preacher and he nodded and thought deeply. “She waits for you there,” he said finally, “alongside her kin and beside her God in the kingdom. All you need do is remember her and you’ll see her again in the after once your toil is done, and you will know pain nevermore.”