Old Lady of Lalibela
This is about an old lady who had seen a lot in her days. She had been a child, a girl, a woman, a daughter, wife, mother, and grandmother. That doesn't matter anymore now she is just an old lonely woman. What is that she is thinking about? Is it the beauty of her youth or the fate of her Children? Is it about the loss of loved ones and the beautiful old days? Is it the love that she lost years and years ago?
Life had been hard on her. Like her, the tree on her background all wrinkled and shrank with age. Like the old dead tree, she will be dead too soon. I wonder if she is worried about or cares about death at all.
She is praying with her prayer stick close by but for what is she praying for? Is she really praying or drifting away in nostalgia when she hears the prayer chant of the priests. Chants that she has heard since she was little. Maybe she is doing both cherishing the good old memories and praying to live in paradise after death. I am sure her long years had never been close to paradise. But How can she pray for paradise if she had not known anything close to resembling it? I am sure she can imagine it. It will be free from all the sufferings that she had gone throughout her long years. Even little old ladies have an imagination of their own.
The picture of the old lady was taken at Lalibela during a Good Friday service in 2017.
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