By: Manal Rabiey
I held my grandfather’s wooden rosary — still breathing the fragrance of roses, as though each bead carried a secret pulse of his soul. The moment it touched my palm, warmth spread through me, and I felt the echo of his fingers lingering there.
Memory carried me back to a night of childhood… I was the stubborn girl with hair the color of fire, daring to sit at the threshold of the sacred gathering. I believed my place was within the circle of men chanting the Divine Name, but my grandfather’s voice, stern yet trembling with love, drove me away:
“Remembrance is not for women.”
His words struck my heart like a blade. I fled, wounded and defiant, whispering within myself: “Why should half of creation be denied the river of light?”
I climbed to the rooftop and perched above the pigeon’s loft, reaching my finger toward the infinite sky. And there he found me — barefoot, silent, his steps careful as if not to disturb the fragile mystery of the night. He lifted me gently and asked with a playful smile:
“What are you doing here alone, little monkey?”
“I complain of you to God,” I said, childlike yet solemn.
He laughed: “And what have I done?”
“You kept me from the remembrance.”
He kissed my cheek, his voice softening:
“Your brother is a boy, you are a girl, and the gathering is for men.”
But I raised my head, fire burning in my eyes:
“Then why not a gathering of remembrance for women?”
He chuckled:
“If women gather, they will speak of gossip, not of God.”
And with all the certainty of a child I declared:
“When I grow, I will have a circle of remembrance of my own, and none shall enter it but me.”
He feigned sorrow: “And me?”
I clung to his neck and whispered:
“You too… and with us the kind moon, and those gentle stars.”
He embraced me, and in that embrace a light was planted in my soul that has never dimmed.
Years passed — more than twenty — and tonight I raise my eyes once more to the sky. Tears fall as I long for him, praying that God gathers us again in the gardens of eternity. And lo, a star shot across the heavens, a spark from the unseen, telling me he remembers me still from the luminous path.
I pressed his rosary to my heart and closed my eyes. Then his voice arose, not from earth, not from memory, but from the current of light that binds all souls:
“My little one, remembrance belongs not to man nor woman, not to time nor place. It is a river that flows in every heart that surrenders. You were too young then, but now your spirit is vast, wider than all the gatherings.”
I opened my eyes. The night had become a sacred assembly — the stars were radiant beads, the moon the venerable guide, and the sky itself the endless rosary.
Through my tears I whispered:
“Here I am, Grandfather, remembering the Divine with the moon and the stars… and you are with me, though beyond the veil.”
And a long-tailed star fell across the firmament, like a divine seal upon my prayer: when souls are joined in remembrance, they are never parted.
