Caela’s Story 7 #fiction #serial #somethingsacred #scifi #fantasy

Caela also found herself spending much time with the historians. The ability to share their stories mind to mind was better than an oral tradition keeping their people’s history alive for those who found such information fascinating or useful. Those who collected and maintained these stories enjoyed nothing better than sharing them with the curious. They were happy to answer young girl Caela’s serious questions as she worked to figure out such issues as her place in the grand scheme, but more urgently how her people had dealt with illness and the mental instabilities of the kind that had taken her mother’s nurturance from her. She found she wanted to know about all manner of her ancestors’ dealings with adversity, the connections and decisions that led to her creation, that she might better understand her talents and developing goals. She didn’t know why it felt so important to her to gain these understandings, only that it was for her a hunger. Singer was not bothered by this particular hunger. He enjoyed the stories she shared with him, but as entertainment more than education.

As Caela’s growing talent for healing became recognized, by herself and others, she became more and more called upon to help out with medical emergencies. Working with those injured by accidents, overtaken by infections, childbirthing, she slowly became familiar with how to respond to panicked, hurting people desperate for reassurance as well as an easing of their pain. Singer she found to be bursting with pride for his Caela’s special abilities so gratefully treasured by their community. She found him always truly happy to be able to help her sort out and deal with her feelings, sympathetic suffering and exhausted sensibilities. He helped her to reach within her own neural system to renew energies outpoured for others. He seemed boundless in energy, love, enthusiasm to share. Thus, she needn’t fear depletion or falling into despair from surfeit of vicarious pain. She could concentrate on the healing, the powerful and precise energy she could freely give. As with any sincere practice, over time it became who she was, how she was perceived by herself and those she knew.

Letta’s physical death, her body finally letting go, while Caela’s body was in the throes of adolescence, was a sad reminder of what had long since been lost. It could not be more to those who had said their good-byes bit by bit over the years when all they could feel from her was emptiness. Caela had never quite given up on trying to reach her mother, who somehow zombie-like managed to go through the physical motions of life without engagement, thought or any but primitive private fear and sadness. Letta had apparently departed from any attempt at salvation, could not be reached, brought back into her life. Bit by bit, Caela became less convinced that she could help. She allowed herself to give over her time and thoughts and energies to more immediately real healing and relationships. Lev too had long since given over his hope to a self-sustaining realization that allowed him to live his life for present projects and future possibilities, not promises lost to the past. They cared for her shell lovingly, devotedly, without demanding what wasn’t left in her to give. When her body too left them, no longer taking breath or circulating blood with heartbeat, they said their final good-byes and gave her shell back to its natural part in the cycle of growth and decay.

https://caelastory.blogspot.com/2009/08/something-sacred-caelas-story.html