The Room That Still Felt Warm

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

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A visitor named Lady Blomfield came a long way to a city called 'Akká. She came to sit with a kind and gentle lady the friends called the Greatest Holy Leaf, and to listen to her stories about the early days of the Faith.

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The Greatest Holy Leaf showed her a small, plain house. It did not look like much. But Bahá'u'lláh and His family had once lived in that little house for twelve long years, when they were prisoners and could not leave.

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Lady Blomfield could hardly believe how hard those years had been. In one small room, she learned, thirteen people sometimes slept all together, packed in tight. There was even a narrow shelf up on the wall — and a nimble pilgrim would climb up and sleep way up there, just to find a spot! Day after day, the women cooked the meals over little charcoal fires, quiet and patient, making room for whoever came to their door.

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One evening, the family let Lady Blomfield sleep in a very special little room. Long ago it had been the room of Ásíyih Khánum, the dear wife of Bahá'u'lláh and the mother of the Greatest Holy Leaf. The Greatest Holy Leaf walked her there gently, and quietly left her to rest for the night.

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In the morning, Lady Blomfield could not keep her happiness inside. She had to tell everyone what she had felt. She said:

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> I am sleeping in the room of Ásíyih Khánum. I was conscious all night of > its benign atmosphere.

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That is an old-fashioned way of saying something simple and beautiful: all through the night, even in that tiny room, she could *feel* a kind and peaceful love still resting in the air — as if it had never left.

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And the Greatest Holy Leaf stood close by, listening. This had been *her* home, with *her* mother. She had lived through those very hard years herself, even once when a terrible sickness came and she fell ill too. Her eyes were full of memories. She heard her mother's name spoken with such love, and she did not say a word to interrupt. Then she quietly went on with her day, welcoming the friends who came to visit.

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The walls of that little room were old, but the love inside it had not worn away. When people fill a place with kindness and patience and prayer, that goodness can linger long after — warm enough for a visitor to feel it, many years later, in the dark of night.

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*This is a retelling for children. For the fuller account, see ["I Slept in the Room of Ásíyih Khánum"](/stories/ch-room-of-asiyih-khanum).*

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