Before my uncle died, he wrote to me from his house overlooking Hornsea Mere to say he was leaving his worldly goods to the Church. He felt I paid too much attention to the material things in life; filling my home with toys and books and costume jewelry. I didn’t focus on spirituality, he mused, by which he meant Jesus – not my Pagan tendencies to burn sage and carry quartz in my purse. My uncle believed that his money would be of better use to God’s flock than to his niece and great-nephews. It was not – and never had been – mine.
In his small, left-slanted handwriting, he proffered his advice. ‘You must enter an undisturbed period of self-assessment so you can make a plan that creates more value in your life.’ I wasn’t sure how, in between working two jobs and caring for my sons, I’d have the same opportunity for contemplation that he (a childless man of independent means) enjoyed. I wasn’t even convinced I needed a plan. But I replied saying he’d motivated me – in fact, he’d been an inspiration since I was thirteen, when he’d rested his hand on mine at my mother’s funeral and told me that our loss was God’s gain.
‘God needs her more than we do,’ he’d said.
In my last letter to my uncle, I added a footnote:
P.S. I share my name with a heroine in the Bible – it means ‘works like a bee’. She was a prophetess and judge. She was strong and brave. She was unashamedly proud.
He will have loved the allusion to the Good Book, and I was free of my sting.
Author: Debra writes short stories and flash. In 2020, she won The Bridport Short Story Prize. Shortlists include the Bath Short Story Award, Bridport Flash Fiction Prize, Pat Kavanagh Award. Longlists include: Manchester Fiction Prize, London Library’s Emerging Writers Programme. Highly commended for the Writers & Artists Working Class Writers Prize.
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A gently powerful story for the times we live in, for the turning from the old patriarchal order to the planetary era of reconnection and wholeness.
This is great deft story-telling and I can't wait to read more by this writer.