Episode #74: Letters of Myriam - Chapter 7 - Letter from Daniel

Jan,16 2026

<-#73: Letters of Myriam - Chapter 6 - The lost chapter#75: A reading guide ->

Letter from Daniel to Myriam, Spring 1919

Myriam,

I write this before I have the courage to say it aloud.

When I first came to the fields, I believed my life had already been decided by war and by the chair that carries me. I thought the future would be a small room with narrow windows. Then you walked beside me, pushing the wheels as if they were not a burden but a conversation.

You have a way of listening that feels like sunlight on the back of the neck. Even when you disagree, your voice does not wound. I have known many kinds of courage, but yours is the kind that does not announce itself.

I watch you among the children and think that patience must have learned its name from you. You kneel to tie their shoes as if the task were holy, and perhaps it is. Christopher says holiness hides inside ordinary motions. If he is right, your hands are full of it.

I do not know how to speak of beauty without sounding foolish, yet I must try. Your face reminds me of the mornings when the mist rises slowly and the world looks newly forgiven. The others see only a woman carrying baskets; I see a harbor where a tired man might rest.

You are faithful in a way that does not boast. When you pray, you do not perform; you simply stand in God's weather and let it fall on you. I have watched you close your eyes while the others argued, and I thought, this is what belief looks like when it breathes.

I fear writing these lines, for a man in my condition should be careful with hope. Still, I would rather risk embarrassment than silence. If my words are clumsy, forgive them; they are learning to walk just as I am.

Christopher says love is a field that must be tended daily, not a fence built in one afternoon. I would like, if you allow it, to learn that tending beside you.

Until I find the courage to place this letter in your hands,

Daniel

<-#73: Letters of Myriam - Chapter 6 - The lost chapter#75: A reading guide ->