Jairus

So, God takes your child by the hand and pulls her from her deathbed. He says: ‘Feed her, she is ravenous.’ You give her fruits with thick hides – pomegranate, cantaloupe – food with weight, to keep her here. You hope that if she eats enough the light and dust and love which weave the matrix of her body will not fray, nor wear so thin that morning sun breaks through her, shadowless, complete. Somehow this reanimation has cut sharp the fear of death, the shock of presence. Feed her roast lamb, egg, unleavened bread: forget the herbs, she has an aching fast to break. Sit by her side, split skins for her so she can gorge, and notice how the dawn draws colour to her just-kissed face.
~Michael Symmons Roberts