The Swailing

Malkut: Misplaced

We find our way through Georgia to The Church of the Healing Hands – a huge building very different from the little white church we went to on Sunday. This building has large glass windows and a parking lot that feels as big as the golf course by Sabine's house. We enter the lobby and I stare up at the high ceiling, the beautiful woodwork, the sparkling glass light fixtures. I try to imagine how much money it must have cost to build this building and what else they might have used that money for. Do they think their God requires this kind of space? This kind of extravagance?

A woman greets us with a friendly smile and Finn uses his southern voice to ask if we can look through the records of visitors from 14 years ago. The woman nods and pushes her chair back from the welcome counter where she sits.

"That was before our new system," she says, her voice thick with that twang that Finn has been using. "We'll have to check the books."

We follow her to a small library of sorts and she gestures to shelves of identical leather-bound volumes, each with a year on the spine. Some years have more than one book and I wonder if those were the influenza outbreak years, or if there was some other reason people flocked here at those times, to pray for healing. She helps us locate the two books from the year that my mom supposedly visited. The books are thick – several hundred pages long with rows and rows of names on each page. I flip through it, amazed at all the paper, even more amazed at the sheer number of people who've come here to be healed. I wonder how it worked out for most of them.

The woman leaves us to look through the books and I try to sort out my thoughts about this God I'm learning about. An all-powerful God who chose to save humankind by sacrificing his son but lets people die every day. A God who loves everyone but will judge us all based on the beliefs in our heads, or what we do with our private parts. A God who has the power to heal and perform miracles, but often chooses not to. I wonder why people pray if prayer doesn't always work. It's basically just like wishing, then. None of it really makes any sense to me.

But if there is a God like that, I can't help but wonder if he listened to my mom's prayers. I wonder if he answered them.

After a half hour or so, Finn finds her name in the middle of his book. Willow Miller, in small, neat writing that I've never seen before. Even if I had grown up knowing my mom, I don't think I'd know what her writing looked like. I'm not even that familiar with my own. I think of my lip balm note to Logan on the window of his car and how I made it short and sweet so I wouldn't have to write more than necessary.

I run my finger over my mom's name, wishing I could feel the outline of the words, like when I felt Finn's tattoo.

So she was here. In February, 14 years ago. There is a section next to her name that has a space for an address, but none is listed. My hope fades again and Finn and I exchange a look. We take the book with my mom's name in it back to the woman at the desk and Finn asks her if there's any way to find out more about the visitors who've come here.

"From 14 years ago? Honey, I doubt it. But we can check the computer system. Maybe she came back again."

Finn gives her my mom's name and the woman types it in. "Sometimes we try to follow up on people who've come. Sometimes they come back to give thanks." She waits while the computer searches painfully slowly. I nearly hold my breath.

I have my answer when she shakes her head sadly. "Sorry, sweetie. Her name's not in here. I doubt she ever came back."

I nod and say thank you in my regular voice, too defeated and tired to attempt that accent again. Finn thanks her for trying and she smiles cheerfully.