Dear forum visitor,
It looks as though you have not registered for a forum account, or are not signed in. In order to participate in current discussions or create new threads, you will need to register for a forum account by clicking on the link below.
Ashrem
Oh Wise One
Ashrem was just starting to be old enough to understand how little he knew when he met the teacher. It was almost 30 years ago that some friends had encouraged him to visit the home of a new acquaintance so that they could share an evening of fantastical adventures together, pretending to be piloting ships into the unknown, trading with strange and alien beings, and rescuing underdogs in dark and winding alleys. He felt an instant connection with the teacher’s daughter, whose home he visited that night. The teacher was a polite, if standoffish man, who had just helped his daughter move thousands of miles, and was gone a few days later, returning to a distant land. Soon, Ashrem and the teacher’s daughter discovered a companionship that helped both of them to flourish, and they become constant companions. They began to build a life together, and were united by the rituals of their ancestors into a pair that lived as one.
And the teacher, though he was gruff, and still a little distant, slowly warmed to Ashrem, and over the ensuing decades became in many ways as important to him as his own father, who had died before Ashrem’s nineteenth summer. And that relationship was strengthened by the teacher’s wife, who treated Ashrem as her own, and took a special place, his own mother having died only months after his father. And when the teacher had been 40 years in his job, he retired, and he and his wife moved thousands of miles to be near their daughter. And a decade later there came a summer when Ashrem and the teacher’s daughter celebrated the 25th year of their union as one, and Ashrem realized that the teacher and his wife were, in many ways, more important to him than his own parents, whom he’d never had the chance to relate to adult to adult.
And scarcely a month after that realization, The teacher experienced terrible headaches, for his own brain cells betrayed him and began to rob him of the logical mind he prized throughout his life. And a few months went by that seemed a frightening mix of not enough time and too much. And at the very end of the coldest part of the coldest year in memory, when a little sunlight was finally promising the return of brighter days, the teacher lost his final battle, and slipped into the cold darkness from the lives of those who loved him.
His pain is gone, but much is left behind.
And the teacher, though he was gruff, and still a little distant, slowly warmed to Ashrem, and over the ensuing decades became in many ways as important to him as his own father, who had died before Ashrem’s nineteenth summer. And that relationship was strengthened by the teacher’s wife, who treated Ashrem as her own, and took a special place, his own mother having died only months after his father. And when the teacher had been 40 years in his job, he retired, and he and his wife moved thousands of miles to be near their daughter. And a decade later there came a summer when Ashrem and the teacher’s daughter celebrated the 25th year of their union as one, and Ashrem realized that the teacher and his wife were, in many ways, more important to him than his own parents, whom he’d never had the chance to relate to adult to adult.
And scarcely a month after that realization, The teacher experienced terrible headaches, for his own brain cells betrayed him and began to rob him of the logical mind he prized throughout his life. And a few months went by that seemed a frightening mix of not enough time and too much. And at the very end of the coldest part of the coldest year in memory, when a little sunlight was finally promising the return of brighter days, the teacher lost his final battle, and slipped into the cold darkness from the lives of those who loved him.
His pain is gone, but much is left behind.
