Unknown Miracle

Unknown Miracle.

There was an elder living at the edge of a small town in a self-made cabin.

From time to time offered services as a gardener, car washer, or just making some errands as needed by its inhabitants.

Most of the time stayed by a nearby river, fishing during the whole day just to get two or three fishes, took them home, cooked some and sundried the others. It was the main diet.  Some bread with the money made, used for a nearby church, to make donations that no one knew who the donator was.

With that money, and other given by the community the church used it to feed homeless people …the church was fighting in court a project by the government to tax churches.

The elder, always dreamed to have a wooden made cross made out of oak or roble, could not be made by the elder, too old, weak and feeble.  No strength in the body left after so many years of hard work, just to survive the hardship of life, the hardship of working without getting any future support after getting old.

One Sunday morning as been walking with some difficulties to church, now getting older and weaker, saw a child begging for some money, collecting money for a mission.  Asked the child: little girl, what are you doing along on the road, doing what?  Where are you parents?  The child looked at the elder and just said: my father is in jail …been accused of a crime did not commit and been set to jail while the trial day comes.  He told me there are enough proof he didn’t do that, but had to wait in jail, for some one with power told the judged my father could not be left free waiting for his sentence, because would commit another crime, better to keep him jailed meanwhile till the day of the hearing.  The judge did so.  I am collecting money to help my father pay some money to find some one he calls “lawyer”, to helping him, he doesn’t trust those free ones, are too immature, he says, inexperienced and don’t care for their “clients” as my father call himself.  I am collecting money to pay a good one.  They don’t work for free.  Freedom has a cost.

The elder looked at her and said: if you wait here, collecting money from passerby, I would go to my cabin and give you the money I have saved for years to buy a cross, a cross similar to the one my grand mother used to have at her home and built my own grave.  She raised me but died when I was about your age.

Thanks, it was all what the child said.

The elder left back to the cabin, made a small hole under the bed, and took a small bag containing some gold coins bought and inherited from the grandmother.  Next day directed steps toward the child was last seen.  Saw the child and then said.  Take this small bag, take this money inside it and give it to the man you say is in jail accused of a crime I feel he didn’t commit, for those words came out of the lips of an innocent child like you, and he is your only way of survival.  You remember me when a stayed alone at your age.  No one came on my rescued, so I now come on your rescue, do as I said, just do that, your father knows what to do next.

The elder left, never looked back; the child left, just disappeared amongst the trees.

Weeks and days after, it came on the news that a man in jail, accused of a crime he never committed, came with a small bag with a fortune in it, given by one virtue unknown child, that now one knows who she was.  Could pay one of the best lawyer in a small town and set free, free as a bird and still have money left to invest in a small business for his future survival, the man was an errand man, family-less a wanderer with no one to help him, but set to jail on the suggestion of the town District Attorney to the ruling judge of the circuit of that small town.

The elder read by accident that news on the paper he saw hanging in a store as he passed by.  He heart popped full of emotion.

Next day, the elder did as usual, left to fish at the nearby river.  As the elder was fishing saw the same child, but on the other side of the river, that throw a cross down the river, toward where the elder was, the river navigated the cross, the elder with a large wooden stick reached at the cross and the cross was savage; then look back at the child, she was moving away in slow motion toward the woods, but disappeared right at the watch of the elder before entering the woods; looked at the cross, confused, the elder took it home, to the cabin. Placed the cross where he wanted to have it all of his life, it was made of the most expensive wood, hard to find but that could last for years if not centuries; discovered writing on it: “To my Grand Son, Rest in Peace”, the elder then died with the cross standing at his bed side.  And I was his confessor.

That was the sermon, the priest of the church gave the whole community present at the funeral of the elderly man.