The first form of monasticism was the lonely hermit. The word hermit comes from the Greek word for “desert” and is a reminder that the monastic flight from the world began in Egypt, where a short journey either east or west from the narrow ribbon of Nile fertility would put the monk in a rigorous desert.
When the waitress brought our meals, I congratulated her on her pregnancy. “You must be overjoyed,” I said.
“Not exactly,” she responded. “It was an accident.”
As she walked away, I couldn’t help but be struck by her frankness. Her casual remark was a reminder about the accidental elements that play into both our arrival into life... and our departure into death. Here was a woman, having a child by accident that she surely would come to love. As for me, through the accident of cancer I’d be leaving three children to grow up without my love.
📚🔔 Tatil zili çaldı!
Bir yıl boyunca verilen emeklerin ardından şimdi dinlenme, keşfetme ve yeni maceralara atılma zamanı. 🌞
Bu yaz bol kahkahalı, bol anılı ve elbette bol kitaplı geçsin. Tüm öğrencilere keyifli tatiller diliyoruz! 💙📖
At any time each of the moments of which life consists is dying, and that moment will never recur. And yet is not this transitoriness a reminder that challenges us to make the best possible use of each moment of our lives?
To Celena
Young, and yet her face … It was an ancient face, wary and cunning and
limned with power. Beautiful, with the sun-kissed skin, the vibrant
turquoise eyes. Turquoise eyes, with a core of gold around the pupil.
Ashryver eyes.
The same as the golden-haired, handsome man who came up beside her,
muscled body tense as he assessed whether he’d need to spill blood, a bow
dangling from his hand.
Two sides of the same golden coin.
Aelin. Aedion.
They were both staring at her with those Ashryver eyes.
Aelin blinked. And her golden face crumpled as she said, “Are you
Elide?”
It was all Elide could do to nod. Lorcan was taut as a bowstring, his
body still half angled over her.
Aelin strode closer, eyes never leaving Elide’s face. Young—she felt so
young compared to the woman who approached. There were scars all over
Aelin’s hands, along her neck, around her wrists … where shackles had
been.
Aelin slid to her knees not a foot away, and it occurred to Elide that she
should be bowing, head to the dirt—
“You look … so much like your mother,” Aelin said, her voice cracking.
Aedion silently knelt, putting a broad hand on Aelin’s shoulder.
Her mother, who had gone down swinging, who had died fighting so
this woman could live—
“I’m sorry,” Aelin said, shoulders curving inward, head dropping low as
tears slid down her flushed cheeks. “I’m so sorry.” How many years had
those words been locked up?
Elide’s arm ached, but it didn’t stop her from touching Aelin’s hand,
clenched in her lap.
Touching that tanned, scarred hand. Warm, sticky skin met her
Juliette.
I can’t control a nightmare, but in my waking moments her name is the only reminder I will permit myself. The accompanying humiliation will not allow me much more than that.
I am already twenty-five years old; a sufficient reminder to her that she is no longer young. When I am away she is only thirty-two, in my presence she is forty-three, …
