She spent a lot of time running away from reality.

When she was young, she ran to the hill country.

She sang revolutionary songs that she couldn’t hope to realize.

She ran to Egypt, where the fires burn and courage trembles.

She tried to leave Jerusalem without him, only to be drawn back, unable to find her son but seeking, searching.

Maybe that was the turning point.

She sought him out and he turned away, finding his family among the outcasts and the sinners, the singers and the women who lavished their resources upon him.

He met her once more on the road out of the city, and they both wept, face to face and separated by the bitter way that life sometimes has of shredding bodies and souls.

He cried out, “Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed,” and a sword pierced her own soul, also.

Dying, his last bequest, mother to son and son to mother, an ironic reconciliation.

And she said, “Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”