Melia-Irrevocable Journey (Sequel to Irrevocable Quest)

059:

059:

"There's nothing like sleeping babies. I've never been so close to sleeping babies, but they are the most peaceful sight in the whole world." He nudged Hannah's curled fingers, her arm flung out and now resting gently against his shirt front. He played with the fingers, pricking first one and then the other and letting them fall back into place. She didn't even stir. He grunted, a chuckle grunt, and teased her wispy hair as well. She crinkled up her eyes and he held his breath waiting to see if she'd awaken and see him....she didn't. His eyes met Melia's again.

"What's Hannah's middle name?" He asked quietly, but with real interest.

"Grace." She answered just as softly.

"Jared named them both?"

"In a way, yes. He definitely told me Hannah's name."

"It fits her perfectly. I've read the Bible, years ago, my mother was Catholic, and she sent me to the Wednesday afternoon kiddy catechism classes. I know who Hannah was. And I know what grace is. I like the thought behind her name. It makes me wish I could have known Jared."

"If you like the thought, how can you call yourself..."

"Atheist?" he smiled gently at her. "Oh, but I've been educated, haven't I? My good friend Melia has told me that in order to be a true Atheist I have to deny God on some level, and I don't deny Him on all levels. In order for there to be love, there must be pain and suffering." He held her eye and when she would have commented, he shushed her with a finger against her lips, and a small smile. "I've surprised you, haven't I? I've thought about what we talked about. I know, it's shocking, but it has happened, and now you know... I like to think." She smiled back at him and kept her mouth shut, so he removed his finger, and went back to twiddling baby curls. "The fact is that I cannot completely deny the existence or the possibility of God, nor can I justifiably say that He isn't in control or doesn't have a purpose for me and my life. I can say that it might all be an accident, but it is also a possibility that it is according to divine plan." He sighed. "I look at the miracle of these new little lives, and I think about the beauty of Karen's passing and the sweetness I felt as her spirit left her body. Melia, I felt it happen, just like you said I would, and it was sweet. I can't believe that she went nowhere. She must have gone somewhere."

He was crying now, silently, his tears not choking him up as they did her. He simply let them run, experienced them as he would any normal part of life, grief. He got through it by letting it out. Melia's eyes were swimming with her feelings, and she couldn't speak at all. She raised her hand to touch him, perhaps to cup his cheek, she wasn't sure, and he clasped her fingers above the little bodies laying so trustingly between them, and laced them together, holding them barely above, and then lightly resting on Hannah's tummy.

Melia bit her lips to keep from sobbing. Her heart was open to him right then, feeling the grief of their combined losses. Feeling the sudden magnitude of their combined closeness as well, and she wondered if Jared and Karen were with them, close by, watching. The thought gave her a sweet comfort that no other thought had. If they were close by, they approved, she thought, they were glad she and Robert had found someone to mourn with, someone to share with, and someone to go on with.

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