Ma blew out the lamp

I finished reading Little House in the Big Woods to the girls on Friday night. We sat on the couch all three of us in our pyjamas and we read eagerly, because it was the final chapter. I never read this as a child, others in the series yes, but not the first. I've really enjoyed it, and the girls have too. I wondered what they'd make of it, with its stories of hunting and harvesting and snow, a world so foreign to them. But they've loved it as much as I have.

As we read the last scene I found tears rolling down my face! There was something so perfect and peaceful about it. Laura and Mary are tucked up in bed at the end of another busy day, with Ma and Pa sitting by the fire.


When Laura and Mary had said their prayers and were tucked snugly under the trundle bed's covers, Pa was sitting in the firelight with the fiddle. Ma had blown out the lamp because she did not need its light. On the other side of the hearth she was swaying gently in her rocking chair and her knitting needles flashed in and out above the sock she was knitting.

It was when I read that Ma blew out the lamp that I started crying. I looked up from the book at the fully-lit room around us, the computer screen on the TV glowing, the lights blazing in the dining room and kitchen. I couldn't imagine turning out the lights. There was too much work still to do. I kept on crying, because something in me was yearning for the simplicity of a life where the day's work is all but finished at sundown.

I constantly feel like I am surrounded by unfinished work. I've been going to bed so late because there is always something else to do. My life feels complicated. Until the girls started school last week I would often go for days feeling like I could hardly hear myself think.

Ma's days were busy. Her responsibilities were huge. She provided for her family without a fridge or freezer, without so much as a corner shop. Almost everything they used and ate was made, grown or caught by them. Life was hard. Yet after dinner, with a fire flickering, Ma rocked gently and knitted.

What did she have that I am missing?

My spiritual director went on Sabbatical a couple of years ago. I remember talking to her about it before she left. She talked about the plans she had for the three months she was going to be away and she was quietly thrilled. I shared the anticipation with her, and then, not able to avoid wishing I was going on a sabbatical of my own, I found myself crying. (Yes, more tears, I know.) Tears of jealousy? No, longing.

And she said to me, I'll never forget it, she said to me so kindly, "Oh Idoya, there's heaven you know." I knew exactly what she meant.

I know that for many of you heaven is the stuff of fairy tales, and I didn't actually plan on writing about it today. Yet I can't help believing that there is a longing for it in all of us. A longing for a life free of heavy responsibility and never-ending work, free of grief that would bury us, and regrets that haunt us. A simple, joyful and fulfilling life. Somewhere deep down I know I was made for it.