His Mother's Tears

In her memories of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s visits to Cambridge, Massachusetts, Florence Breed Khan told of a despairing woman who had come all the way from California to Massachusetts to see Him.

This woman was a widow who had been left with the care of a simple-minded boy, and had also managed to support a brilliant son through the University at Berkeley. Hardly graduated, he stepped outside the garden gate, was struck down by a car and died. Ahead of the woman, bound to the simple-minded one, there now stretched, instead of increasing joy, a future of unending grief.

At the request of Florence's mother, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá visited this woman. He dismissed two Persians who accompanied Him, and Florence was left, to her dismay, with her sketchy Persian, to translate. But her Persian began to flow, she said, and the Master spoke to the woman in words such as these:

'I seem to see your son', He told her, 'like a great bird soaring through the heavens of God's love and grace. He says and asks, "I am completely happy here. Why does my mother weep?" He knows when you cry for him, and when you sorrow and pray. As for him, would you like to hear of his only grief?'

'Oh yes, Master!' she said.

'It is his mother's tears.'

'Oh, Master, what am I to do?'

'It is only human,' He told her gently, 'to grieve and weep and mourn the ones we love. But perhaps you could weep a little less? Perhaps you could temper your sorrow just a little?'

Source: Marzieh Gail, Arches of the Years, ch. 17, pp. 88–89.

Collected from bahaistories.com (Subject: grief).

Various. *bahaistories.com archive*. https://bahaistories.com/subject/grief