Clara's Invisible Father: A Parable of Faith

There was an Irish girl named Clara whose father sailed to America before the Great Famine. He left his family in Ireland, not wanting to expose them to the dangers of the “coffin ship” that was the only passage he could afford, but he promised to send for them soon. 

Clara was barely three when her father sailed away and had no memory of him, but every night her mother talked about the man and how deeply he loved them. During the Great Famine, Clara never tired of hearing how clever her father was, how he was  certain to succeed and take her to a land of plenty. At night she talked to her father and imagined she could hear him answer.

A few letters came from America, not written by the father himself, but by friends who had met him, and Clara memorized them, untroubled that they postponed again and again the day of his return. His final letter reported that he had staked a rich claim in a California goldfield. 

After that, Clara and her mother heard nothing, but she continued to talk to her father every night, feeling so close to him that she felt he could hear her words as she imagined his comforting replies. This made Clara’s grim life of hunger, cold, and poverty bearable.