From the day our little Adina was weened, Simeon and I began to save for her dowry. We were determined to find her a husband from a good family --maybe even one of higher social standing-- a family that would cherish her as we did. So many of the young women of my village, with inadequate dowries or none at all, had been married off to coarse men from uncaring families. How fortunate I was that my parents gave me to Simeon, the gentlest man in all of Galilee, who never raised his voice! Nor did he curse the Lord or me when I gave birth to a girl. He built Adina’s cradle with his own hands. If she cried during the night, he got up, took her into his arms, and hummed her back to sleep. One morning, as I was giving her a bath, he said, “Huldah, Adina must have a dowry.”
For the next fifteen years my husband and I toiled. Simeon expanded his pottery business, taking orders from surrounding villages. He worked at his wheel from first light until twilight and lost weight sweating at the kiln. Often he would be gone a week or more delivering finished vessels by donkey cart. I took up weaving again, a skill I had learned from my mother and aunts. A cousin gave us an old loom that Simeon was able to repair, and I soon lost count of all the cloaks and blankets I was making. I even invented a specialty item, a seamless tunic woven in a single piece from top to bottom, for which customers were willing to pay a premium price.
By Adina’s fifteenth birthday, my Simeon and I had managed to accumulate ten drachmas, an enviable dowry for a young woman from a humble village. Then my joy suddenly turned to sorrow. The day after he deposited the last silver coin into the tiny coffer, Simeon collapsed, never to awaken again. The long days at the potter’s wheel and kiln along with the strenuous delivery hauls had taken their toll. Although the heads of local households were already making visits to ask for Adina’s hand, my daughter was inconsolable and had eyes for none of the prospective husbands. Finally, the Lord was pleased to dry our tears and turn our hearts toward the future. Adina expressed a preference for a young man whose parents had shown us great compassion in our grief and whose son promised to love her tenderly.
The day before the betrothal ceremony, I spread out the ornate tablecloth that I myself had woven expressly for the occasion. Setting the coffer in the place of honor at the center of the table, I opened it and counted the coins. Nine. I counted again. Nine again. Not believing my own eyes, I had Adina count. Still nine. How could this be? We frantically scoured the house, expending a month’s worth of lamp oil ferreting in every corner. How that coin had managed to roll into a soot-laden spot in the far reaches of the fireplace I will never know. Relieved, we polished it and returned it to the box.
The joy of Adina’s wedding would have been complete but for the absence of my Simeon. Still, our near catastrophe haunted me, and for weeks afterwards I would awaken in a sweat in the middle of the night. My spirit was telling me to find some special way to thank the Lord for saving us from disgrace. So, when disciples of the holy man passed through our town, announcing that he would come to teach and lay hands on the sick, I determined to fall at his feet and proclaim aloud what the Lord had done for us. On the day of the holy man’s arrival, I somehow managed to work my way to the front of the crowd and tell him my story. “I rejoice with you, my daughter!” he said. “But you must not keep this story to yourself. Go, tell your neighbors, that they too may give our Father praise!” I promised to do as he commanded. But first, I sat down on a rock and listened to his sermon. He spoke about a shepherd who had a hundred sheep but left the ninety-nine to go in search of the one that was lost. Next he told a moving story about a wayward son whose father forgave him and even prepared a great feast upon his return home. Then the holy man looked straight at me and smiled as he began: “Suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one…”
Author's note: I wrote this little story as an assignment for my amateur writers group. The theme was someone who lost something and then retrieved it, and I instantly thought of Jesus' parable of the woman who found the lost coin. I'd like to acknowledge Laura Hammel of the Sisters of St. Clare over at the Global Sisters Report: https://www.globalsistersreport.org/column/spirituality/lost-coin-lesson-compassion-42186.
