Talitha Koum

Written by Tina Francis Mutungu

“Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. But he put them all outside and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him and went in where the child was. Taking her by the hand he said to her, “Talitha koum,” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise.” And immediately the girl got up and began walking (for she was twelve years of age), and they were immediately overcome with amazement.- Mark 5:39-42

About a year ago, my son, Ezra, went through a phase where he talked about being “dead.” A lot.

“If I don’t eat this cereal fast, then I’m gonna be DEAD, right?”

“Um… You won’t be dead,” I said a little stunned, “But your cereal will get soggy.”

“But if three bad guys jumped out of nowhere, and shot their laser beams at me, even though I tried to ax-kick at supersonic speed to block them, and I can’t because there’s only one of me, and I become invisible and trap them in a spiderweb, but they can blow it up with their superninjapower, and the explosion will show them my body… ”

He gasps, scoops some now-soggy cereal into his mouth, and says nonchalantly with milk glistening on his chin, “Thennn…I’d be dead, right?”

No segue.

No transition.

Cereal to death in 30 seconds flat.

“Why do you talk about death so much, Ezra?!”

He looks at me, puzzled. “What is death?” he says.

Now I stare back, equally puzzled.

“Oh!” he interjects. “Death is the square thing you use with a chair. You use it to write on or to put papers on.”

“Um…I think you mean desssk,” I counter, emphasizing the tail-end of the word.

“Yeah. That’s what I said,” Ezra shrugs.

“Death!”

Now while my lispy halfling can’t conjugate, his question is poignant and worthy of reflection: “What is death?”

I’ve contemplated mortality a lot since becoming a mother. I’ve inadvertently built a towering anthology of resources on grief on my nightstand. I’m hoping that proximity to stories of surviving grief will help soothe the low-grade hum of anxiety at the thought of losing a loved one someday.

Something about giving birth to Ezra underlined the miracle and ungovernable independence of a beating heart. How, what, and why does a heart continue to beat for as long as it does? What makes it stop? It’s utterly confounding to consider.

When I was in high school, my dad and I visited my favorite aunt, who was going through chemo. My aunt was a nun, so I’d never seen her wearing anything but vestments before—a sandstone brown cotton sari—and her hair always gathered into a neat bun at the nape of her neck. Not today, however. A roomy hospital gown and socks enveloped her small body, her eyes were bright with excitement, and her hair formed a wispy-halo giving her the appearance of a benevolent dandelion.

“How are you?” I asked tentatively as I sat down beside her. She grabbed my hands and looked over her shoulders, conspiratorially as if she were about to divulge a secret.

“I saw him,” she said.

“Whom?” I asked, staring at the beads of sweat forming on her upper lip.

“Jesus!” she said.

Now I was the one looking over my shoulders, hoping my dad would walk in.

“He said two words to me,” she paused, putting up two fingers.

“Talitha koum.”

My eyebrows furrowed and mouth-parted.

“It means: Little girl, get up!”

Then my dear aunt closed her eyes and lay back on her pillow with a content smile.

Jesus said the words “Talitha koum” at the funeral of Jairus’ twelve-year-old daughter (Mark 5:35-43). “The child is not dead but sleeping.” Jesus insisted as he brought her back to life. “Talitha” is etymologically related to a word that also means “lamb.”

“My little lamb,” he says to her as he restores her life, “it’s time to get up.”

Unlike the little girl in the story, my aunt never recovered from cancer and ultimately died, but this conversation has always stayed with me. Why were these words so comforting to her in her suffering? Did she think she was going to be healed? Or did the words just give her the courage to “get up” and face another day?

How many of us need to hear the words Talitha Koum, right now? Frederick Buechner said, “Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.”

At this very moment, rotting bananas are being mashed to make banana bread. A baby is cutting her first tooth as I marvel at the fresh crop of grey blooming at my temples. “Will you marry me?” and “It’s over” are being offered in that apartment building facing the car dealership. Birthday cupcakes are being iced as a set of tired tulips take their final bow. Someone is learning to play Für Elise. Someone’s fingers can no longer play. (Still, their heart remembers.) A five-year-old is making bubbles in the backyard. A pot of pasta overboils as I take pictures. And a pandemic sweeps through the earth.

“What is death?” All of these things. All of these things are life, too.

In her poem “The Voice of God,” Mary Karr writes, “Ninety percent of what’s wrong with you could be cured with a hot bath, says God… Put down that gun, you need a sandwich.”

Talitha Koum. My little lamb, get out of bed. Call your mother. Put a comb through your hair. Water your plants. Defrost the chicken. Respond to the email. Pay the bill. Stop reading the news. Eat the sandwich.

Often we need Jesus’ messianic witness of when we are sleeping, not dead. We, too, could use His gentle prompt to spring back up to life.