I had an interesting conversation with the old lady that I’m taking care of at work. I was reading The Little Prince to her, and here’s what she said to me - verbatim - when I asked her if she liked being read to:
‘You read beautiful. You don’t see what I see with my eyes when you read, but I see beautiful things. I like you reading. You read beautiful, you do good. Is a good story.’
After, I asked her if she liked numbers (because the narrator at the beginning talks about grown-ups liking numbers). She said:
‘Numbers don’t make good meshe. You know what meshe is? Is what you read to me. Is a story. Meshe. I like words, like you do because they make good meshe. They are beautiful. Do you believe everything you read?’
Me: Well, I believe a meshe while I’m reading it, but when it’s done, I stop believing. Because the words have stopped, and it doesn’t exist anymore. I believe in my story, though and I know that you believe in yours.
‘Yes, yes. That’s good.’
Me: I’m sure you have a beautiful meshe. Every morning is a new one, and when you go to bed, it ends. The next day, you write a new one again. Our lives are our stories.
‘Children like them. We should be like children because stories are beautiful. We should look at the beautiful.’
Me: Yes.
‘You know, this is not my home. Little boy in your book is not home. I have no home anymore. But I have a meshe, and is beautiful. Is my home.’
Me: That’s right. Your home is right here, right in your heart.
‘Yes. Because is beautiful, is where everything is.’
Me: When I come back, we’ll finish this meshe, ok?
‘Yes, yes. You have a home?’
Me: I do.
‘Take care of it and take your stories here. Tell good stories. Tell good words. You read beautiful and I like you reading.’
Me: Thank you. I will.
‘I like you smiling. You have beautiful teeth.’
I tried looking ‘meshe’ up and from her repertoire of languages besides English (Russian, Swedish, and German), I ended up with this: מעשה. It’s Yiddish for ‘story’. The phonetic reading is: Mʻşh, courtesy of Google Translate. I don’t know if this is the exact word that she was telling me about, but I’m guessing it’s close? I couldn’t find the word in any of the 3 languages I mentioned, and I didn’t know if she speaks Yiddish or not (but now that I found this word, maybe she does). Maybe I’ll ask her what language it comes from next time.
BUT my point is this: we really need to look at our lives with our hearts and faith, trusting and believing the unseen. Keep the memories - the stories - whether they be good or bad. That’s how we live out our lives. That’s how we make a home out of wherever we may be.
