Fierce women

 

Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. (John 13:1)

It’s always the women, or so it seems; always the women who love most fiercely. It was on display again in a Texas classroom, as with a holy cohort of women whose silent witness reaches from their graves, again and again, to bless me with their beauty.

Irma Garcia died on the floor of Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, her arms embracing children whom she taught and loved until her final breath. She loved them and loved them to the end. If there is anything holier, I know not of it.

The image sears itself on the heart, and if the Spirit is gracious to us we shall never be able to remove it. For she reveals the Love with which we are loved, and the love to which every human soul is called on our lifelong project of becoming truly human.

Hers was the fierce love of those blessed to know nothing else fully satisfies or is truly worthy of our souls. Blessed is she.

And blessed, too, are so many others whose names I never knew but whom, I pray, greeted Ms. Garcia at heaven’s gate, welcoming her into that great cloud of witnesses who had absolutely no doubt of life’s truest purpose. These are fierce women of whom I heard and witnessed with my own eyes, women who denied themselves food amid civil war and massive starvation to save their families in places like Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan.

They carried their children out of harm’s way until they dropped on dirt paths unable to go any further, hoping, praying someone would pick up their posterity and lead their little ones to places where gentle hands would receive them.

Such souls are always closer than we imagine. “I love you both fiercely,” my precious daughter, Rachel, often texts at the close of her messages to her mother and me. I don’t doubt it. She has been ferocious since toddlerhood, and her passion for all her loves is known by any blessed to know her. And why not, she is the daughter of Dixie, who has managed to love me for more than five decades in spite of myself.

They are two of so many who live in our hearts, women whose love is like that of the women who stood by our Lord Jesus at the cross when others fled, women who were the first at the tomb to care for his broken body, women who were first to bear witness to the wonder that Love has an answer to every death we shall ever die, fierce women whose love incarnates the One who is Love Incarnate.

David L. Miller