The Story of a Mother

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"Do not touch them!" Death told her. "You say you are desperate, yet you would drive another mother to the same despair."

"Another mother!" The blind woman's hands let go the flowers.

"Behold," said Death, "you have your eyes again. I saw them shining as I crossed the lake, and fished them up, but I did not know they were yours. They are clearer than before. Take them and look deep into this well. I shall tell you the names of the flowers you were about to uproot and you shall see the whole future of those human lives that you would have destroyed and disturbed."

She looked into the well, and it made her glad to see how one life became a blessing to the world, for it was so kind and happy. Then she saw the other life, which held only sorrow, poverty, fear, and woe.

"Both are the will of God," said Death.

"Which one is condemned to misery, and which is the happy one?" she asked.

"That I shall not tell you," Death said. "But I tell you this. One of the flowers belongs to your own child. One life that you saw was your child's fate, your own child's future."

Then the mother shrieked in terror, "Which was my child? Tell me! Save my innocent child. Spare him such wretchedness. Better that he be taken from me. Take him to God's kingdom. Forget my tears. Forget the prayers I have said, and the things I have done."

"I do not understand," Death said. "Will you take your own child back or shall I take him off to a land unknown to you?"

Then the mother wrung her hands, fell on her knees, and prayed to God:

"Do not hear me when I pray against your will. It is best. Do not listen, do not listen!" And she bowed her head, as Death took her child to the unknown land.