Chapter Seven
403 Words
The Question That Had No Answer
One evening, as the sun bled slowly into the horizon, Ama sat near the elders’ fire. The day’s heat was fading, and smoke curled gently into the darkening sky. She had been quiet all day, her thoughts heavier than the water pot she carried each morning.
She looked at the old man beside the fire—his hair white, his eyes lined with years of knowing.
“Why do good people die?” Ama asked.
Her voice was small, but the question was not.
The elder sighed, a long breath shaped by many funerals. He poked the fire with a stick and watched the embers glow. “It is the will of God,” he said softly.
Ama nodded.
That was what children were expected to do when adults spoke. But inside her heart, a storm raged. The answer sat heavily on her chest, unfinished and unsatisfying.
If it was God’s will, why did it hurt so much?
If it was God’s will, why take a mother from her child?
Why did God not explain Himself to children?
Ama stared into the fire, watching flames rise and collapse. She thought of her mother’s kindness, her laughter, the way she shared food even when it was little. None of it seemed deserving of such an ending.
That night, Ama lay awake longer than usual.
She turned the elder’s words over and over in her mind, searching for meaning the way one searches for a lost coin in the dust. She realized that answers given to adults often broke when placed in a child’s hands.
From that day, Ama began thinking deeply.
She observed people closely—their prayers, their silences, the way they accepted sorrow without protest. She noticed how adults spoke of God with certainty but cried with confusion. She learned that faith could live side by side with pain.
Sorrow began shaping her mind.
It taught her to ask questions no one rushed to answer. It taught her that not all truths are clear, and not all explanations heal. While other children worried about games and chores, Ama carried thoughts too heavy for her age.
She did not stop believing—but her belief grew quiet, thoughtful, cautious.
That evening marked a turning point.
The day Ama learned that some questions have no answers—
and that the asking of them
can change a child forever.
- Writer
