The Lady Who Remembered Everything

A retelling for children, based on The Chosen Highway by Lady Blomfield.

In the spring of 1922, a kind Englishwoman named Lady Blomfield came to the city of Haifa. She climbed the stairs of a house on a street called Persian Street, and there, in a quiet upper room, she met one of the most remarkable people she would ever know.

The woman she met was small. She wore a white veil that fell almost all the way down to the floor. And when Lady Blomfield looked into her face, she noticed something she never forgot: her eyes seemed full — full of memories, as if they were holding a whole long life all at once.

This small woman was called the Greatest Holy Leaf. Her real name was Bahíyyih Khánum, and she was the daughter of Bahá'u'lláh and the sister of 'Abdu'l-Bahá.

She did not speak quickly. When Lady Blomfield asked her something, the Greatest Holy Leaf would think for a long, long time first. Only after all that quiet thinking would she begin to speak — and then she spoke softly, in her own language, Persian.

Why did her eyes hold so many memories? Because she had seen so very much.

When she was only six years old, soldiers had come and taken her father away, and stripped her family of everything they owned. Imagine being just six, and watching that happen to your home. When she was seven, she had walked the long, hard road from one country to another. As a young woman, she had lived inside the prison-city of 'Akká. And all through her life, through every hard thing, she had stayed faithful and brave.

Now she was old. Her beloved brother, 'Abdu'l-Bahá, had passed away just a few months before, and the whole household was sad and missing Him. There was so much important work that needed someone to look after it. And do you know who quietly carried that work, in that little upstairs room? She did — this small, gentle woman in the white veil.

Lady Blomfield came back to the upper room many afternoons, and the Greatest Holy Leaf would talk with her. She remembered things almost no one else in the world could remember. She could name friends who had lived long ago. She could describe rooms in faraway cities that no visitor from the West had ever seen. Sometimes she would smile, remembering a kind or funny thing her father had once said. And sometimes, remembering a younger brother who had died long ago, she would weep — and then gently gather herself again, and go on.

When she finished talking, she would sit very still. The afternoon light would come softly through the window and rest on her white veil, and the room would be peaceful and quiet.

Here is what Lady Blomfield understood as she sat with her. A whole long life of being faithful — of carrying something precious from the time you are a small child all the way into old age, never once setting it down — leaves its mark on a person. It was there in the Greatest Holy Leaf's patient, thoughtful eyes. Those eyes were full of memories. They were also full of the quiet, steady work she was still doing, and would keep doing for the rest of her days.

Being faithful is not always loud or grand. Sometimes it looks like a small woman in a quiet room, who has loved and served for her whole life — and is still loving, and still serving.

This is a retelling for children. For the fuller account, see "Her Eyes Charged with Memories: A Portrait of the Greatest Holy Leaf".

Blomfield, L.. (1940). *The Chosen Highway*. Bahá'í Publishing Trust.