I will replace it with a short "What -I'm-Reading Wednesday," because I just finished a really good book. I read "The Midwife of Venice" by Roberta Rich. It's set in 1575, and it is about a young Jewish lady who is particularly gifted at midwifery. Hannah is very poor, living in the Ghetto in Venice, when she is called upon to deliver a Christian baby to a very rich, noble family. Her Rabbi forbids her to go, since this illegal action would bring shame and wrath upon all of the Jewish people in Venice. She strikes a deal with the desperate father: she asks for an exorbitant sum of money {for her, anyway--what would take her years to earn} in order to free her husband from slavery. He was taken captive in Malta, and the story alternates between the two settings. The father agrees, and Hannah goes to the mansion under cover of night. The mother has been laboring for several days, and is very week. Her midwife is ready to use the "crochet" in order to save the mother's life, but Hannah steps in with her "birthing spoons" and is able to deliver a healthy baby boy, who will replace his father's indolent brothers as his heir. The mother never quite recovers, and this will be her only child.
Hannah is paid, and all is well as she prepares to sail to Malta to retrieve her husband. But one of the brothers finds Hannah's special instrument which she inadvertently left at the mansion. He uses it to blackmail her with the threat of exposing her as a witch, with the price of his silence being all of the money his brother gave her. They are to make this exchange when Hannah is invited to the mansion for a dinner a while later. Through her wit, she is able to retrieve her spoons and keep the money. On her way out, she decides to stop upstairs and see the handsome baby, only she finds the baby is missing. She realizes that the other brother has taken the baby, so she follows him. He leads her back to the Ghetto, and she begins to understand that he would frame her for the kidnapping and death of his nephew.
What must she do to save the child and her husband? Wouldn't you like to know. This was a very well-written novel, with some vivid description of life in the dark ages. Rich writes about the plague, the smells, the rats, the slipperiness of the cobblestones at high tide, etc. I love historical fiction. I love being transported to another time and place, and realizing just how lucky I am to be living in this civilized world, where a Jewess would not be put to death for delivering the baby of a Christian; where we have sterile instruments and low infant mortality; where C-sections are routinely performed, saving the lives of mothers and children all over the world.
When she writes about the husband, who eking out a very meager living by writing contracts for people who can neither read nor write for themselves, it is very eye-opening. I know there are many people who actually live like this today, with very little in the way of food or shelter, who work for pennies and starve in the streets.
I am a very selfish creature; I love to shop and I feel like I need {and deserve} more, when there are so many around me who have so little. It is always good to keep one's advantages in perspective.
For example, I was on my way home from work tonight {around 11:30pm}, when I decided to leave the parking lot via an alternate route. While driving this way, I saw a man in a wheelchair in one of the parking lots far from the main hospital. I asked him if he needed some help, and he said he was trying to get to the emergency room. He asked if it was beyond the Central Lab building {which it isn't}, so I knew he was lost. I offered him a ride in my car and put his wheelchair in the back. It wasn't a long distance, but for someone who is compromised and in pain, who has no use of their legs, and who is hopelessly turned around in the dark and cold {it was about 15 degrees outside}, it honestly could have been fatal.
I'm grateful I was prompted to drive in this direction, and I'm glad I was able to help this man. I know that having a warm, working car is a luxury not afforded to many, and I'm pleased that I was able to use it to serve someone in need.
We are all given gifts: some {like Hannah} have special abilities; others have physical or spiritual gifts. I pray we may all discover what they are and use them for good, to serve our fellow men and to lift each other up.
