And so I knew the mourners had started to disperse by now, which was truly humbling. Alas, they had been at it for a shorter time than usual—but how could you blame them, really?
There was no money, and of the seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys we used to own, not a single one was left. Nothing you could offer them for payment; alas, nothing left to sustain the customary expression of grief. Sigh.
Job stayed with me awhile. Again and again he mumbled, in his inexplicable, pious manner, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I depart.” Men! Always thinking of themselves! All the while there I was, flat on my back, in need of some attention, and some clothes, too!
Finally he left the gravesite. I waited, waited until the sound of his footfalls had shuffled away—oh, how well I knew this tortured gait of his!—until it too was gone.
The biblical Book of Job never tells you what happened to Job's wife, nor does it give her a name. By the end of the book he has a new set of children and a new wife. What a happy ending! One that leaves you in the dark... So in my book, she describes waking up to the moment of her death, and what happens in Hell.
