A monologue by Sarah, to follow the reading.
Source: Spill The Beans Issue 16
So I laughed.
Yes, I laughed
when I heard.
Laughing was my default reaction after all those years.
It’s what everyone told me to do.
Look for the things that make you laugh.
Find the things that bring a moment’s lightness, a brief respite.
God knows I needed those moments.
And yes, I found them.
I learned to forget,
to step outside the guilt and the pain,
to be lost in the fleeting respite,
caught up in the wonder of the spring rain,
the flowers in the desert, the
look in my husband’s
eyes, those rare times
he still gazed at me with
love and not pity.
For long years, laughter never failed me. I
could even turn it on
as I watched all the mothering around me,
other women’s children taking their first steps,
running into my arms
while they were still too young
to understand my shame.
Did I trust God’s
laughable promise? Did
Abraham trust, even
as he fell into sardonic
mirth when he heard
the first time?
Of course
we sat down and looked at it seriously.
If it’s God’s promise, I reasoned, I’ll cope,
even with Hagar’s belly swelling. It all made sense.
And then I laughed.
I laughed at myself when no-one could hear me.
Who was I kidding?
How would I cope?
How did it make sense?
What was God doing?
What had I done wrong?
It all happened so easily for her.
Abraham loved the boy
his boy
and I saw the joy in him
that I had never been able to bring.
It was too much.
I called on the laughter but it would not come.
I searched for it in the winking stars,
in the smell of good soup,
in the faces of friends,
but it would not come.
It came with the visitors’ news.
The cakes were baking
and I was dusting the flour from my hands
when I heard them speak my name.
How did they know my name,
and why care to speak of me?
“Sarah shall have a son”.
They heard me laughing,
and would not let me deny it!
Praise God,
nor was there any denying the pleasure,
or the promise,
or my pregnant old body,
or the tears of joy in my husband’s eyes
when we held our son.
What did we name him?
We named him Laughter.