Three Kids and a Kettle

Salima and the Archbishop

The square in front of the cathedral on the Feast, families standing apart.

This year the Feast was almost empty. No pilgrims from outside, only us. Every third child of a church-married family has the Archbishop as godfather, so for our Salima it was Mar Ephrem himself. Forty babies this year instead of the usual thousands, in the square, families standing far from each other with masks.

He said the name over her in Iradi, and then in Syriac. She did not cry. He gave us a silver salyba and a letter with his own signature. I keep it in the drawer with the passports.

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