At last big-faced Norval Tawes read Scripture and prayed. Norval Tawes called out, and his little black eyes glittered on Hugh. Hugh thought, Just about everywhere, since you ask. And it is. Death is just about everywhere.
Death is everywhere in our reading for today.
A woman, a nobody, is dying a slow and isolated death, gripped by a chronic illness that has caused her to bleed without ceasing for twelve long years. Her bleeding has made her ritually unpure, and so an outcast from her family and society. A lonely and sure death is poised in the wings. A father, a man of importance in the community, a man of wisdom and learning and faith in God, in desperation comes to Jesus. His daughter is dying.