Some years ago, in need of a change of scenery and fewer distractions as I entered the final stretch of working on a new book, I went to Miami and spent a week in the home of friends. I had taken along my copy of An Interrupted Life. At the time, this abridged version of Etty Hillesum’s diaries was the only available edition of her work. One evening I picked it up to look for a quotation that I wanted to include in my book. I soon realized that I would not be able to simply skim through Etty’s words to find the passage I sought.
In the course of the week I reread the book cover to cover, taking in Etty’s words more slowly than I had done the first time I read them. I found myself struck by the similarity of some of the questions that Etty and I both carried and devastated anew by the extinguishing of the woman whom her friends had described as “a luminous personality.”
Our week with Etty here at Sanctuary of Women closes with a poem I wrote during that Miami sojourn.
For Etty, Who Still Walks
on the Path of Witness
It is midday in Miami.
Esther, who bears your given name,
sets an orchid on the table outside
where I sit surrounded
by hibiscus and blooming cactus,
by poinsettia and palm.
This tropical haven
would be foreign to you,
but I think this is how
your soul must have looked:
a riot of color,
a garden of defiance
planted against the growing terror.
I long for your presence
at this table,
to tell you how your words
bore fruit
bore witness
bore hope
in the decades that followed,
how every phrase was a seed
that settled in the throats
of those struggling to speak,
how every sentence became a bloom
in the hands of those writing their way
out of the wilderness.
Bless us, Etty,
for there is still much
that cries out for witness,
and the shadows grow long,
and we need endless healing balm.
Closing blessing
Blessed are you
who bear witness
in these times,
for from your words
will flow a balm
for all wounds.
“For Etty, Who Still Walks on the Path of Witness” is from In Wisdom’s Path, and the closing blessing is from Sacred Journeys, both © Jan L. Richardson.
