by Cristina Legarda
For the record I was not a prostitute nor did I pour nard all over his head. I wasn’t sleeping with Him, either, if that’s what you’re thinking. A friendship like ours will be hard to understand, I suspect, even a thousand years from now, because when a man loves a woman and a woman loves a man as we love each other it’s so much easier to fall back on sex organs rather than souls. The passion burns as brightly and there’s a kind of desire there but not the kind people want to understand. The paradox of the faraway God is how close, how close we really are. I thought my rage (one of my many demons) was greatest when He died but would you believe it was after I saw Him again that I felt a fury beyond expressing. I had gotten used to his friends talking over me dismissing me ignoring me constantly downplaying what I had to say but to refuse to believe what I saw with my own eyes – who could imagine or fabricate an entire conversation with a man we all knew? I saw Him. He lives. There is nothing anyone can do about that. I can already see where this is going. They don’t like the special treatment, the power, the bond. I may have ruined it for every woman to come. But that has never stopped us before and in the end it doesn’t change the truth: we are very much alive and the good news is we are worthy of love we are loved we are love
Cristina Legarda was born in the Philippines and spent her early childhood there before moving to Bethesda, Maryland. She is now a practicing physician in Boston. Her work has appeared in America magazine, The Dewdrop, Dappled Things, Plainsongs, FOLIO, Ruminate, The Good Life Review, and others.
Agape Review 