Good people get a good day. It is my motto. It is my creed.
I could see how Deborah sacrificed so much for her ungrateful grandkids. Despite both her and her husband working into their seventies, she ate sandwiches at home so that they wouldn't have to worry about their student loans.
I felt bad about her husband, Kevin. Workplace accident. He might have survived it if he had been a few years younger, but at 70, even a minor slip and fall can signal the end. A younger man might have had a broken shoulder, but when that 40 pound box fell on him, it snapped his fragile neck, and he was dead before he hit the ground.
I realize it's time. Deborah's been in the facility for two years now. I held her hand as she woke up. She didn't see me, but it seemed like the eyesight that she had in her 20s had returned to her. The little aches and pains faded as if they had never been there to begin with.
Today is a Saturday. Her kids came to visit her. She smiled and chatted and asked them questions about their life with a lucidity they had not seen in a long time. There was warmth. Laughter. The gentle chiding of a mother who never stops being a mother, even when their kids are in their fifties.
Deborah's food tasted a little better that day. She played games with her friends. She was guessing the answers on Jeopardy before the contestants could even begin to hit buttons.
And that night, around 10.30, she died, and I was there, still holding her hand as I walked her in to the world beyond.
I'm not a powerful god. Only the most erudite of scholars could even locate a symbol used to recognize my name when I first came to the world of men.
My entire job is to serve as a psychopomp, to lead the worthy souls across the great divide. But the good ones get a good day. That is my motto.
Thank you very much. I feel like I could have done more with the prompt. I was inspired by the idea of terminal lucidity and what it would mean if it was a god that was giving that to a person instead of just a side effect of the human condition.
I feel like I should have gone deeper into the things around Deborah's life that made her worthy of receiving the gift of terminal lucidity from this God, but I also just wanted to bang out a quick reply during my lunch break.
Yeah, I think you took a cool and interesting angle to the prompt.
I kind of like the idea that "good" wasn't that hard to achieve. It wasn't clear to me if part of gift eligibility was dependent on the way a person died or if her husband wasn't "good" enough to receive it.
Based on your work here, I hope you have more "quick replies" during your lunch break :)
5 replies
Good people get a good day. It is my motto. It is my creed.
I could see how Deborah sacrificed so much for her ungrateful grandkids. Despite both her and her husband working into their seventies, she ate sandwiches at home so that they wouldn't have to worry about their student loans.
I felt bad about her husband, Kevin. Workplace accident. He might have survived it if he had been a few years younger, but at 70, even a minor slip and fall can signal the end. A younger man might have had a broken shoulder, but when that 40 pound box fell on him, it snapped his fragile neck, and he was dead before he hit the ground.
I realize it's time. Deborah's been in the facility for two years now. I held her hand as she woke up. She didn't see me, but it seemed like the eyesight that she had in her 20s had returned to her. The little aches and pains faded as if they had never been there to begin with.
Today is a Saturday. Her kids came to visit her. She smiled and chatted and asked them questions about their life with a lucidity they had not seen in a long time. There was warmth. Laughter. The gentle chiding of a mother who never stops being a mother, even when their kids are in their fifties.
Deborah's food tasted a little better that day. She played games with her friends. She was guessing the answers on Jeopardy before the contestants could even begin to hit buttons.
And that night, around 10.30, she died, and I was there, still holding her hand as I walked her in to the world beyond.
I'm not a powerful god. Only the most erudite of scholars could even locate a symbol used to recognize my name when I first came to the world of men.
My entire job is to serve as a psychopomp, to lead the worthy souls across the great divide. But the good ones get a good day. That is my motto.
That is my creed.
That was a good read. Thank you for sharing :)
Thank you very much. I feel like I could have done more with the prompt. I was inspired by the idea of terminal lucidity and what it would mean if it was a god that was giving that to a person instead of just a side effect of the human condition.
I feel like I should have gone deeper into the things around Deborah's life that made her worthy of receiving the gift of terminal lucidity from this God, but I also just wanted to bang out a quick reply during my lunch break.
Yeah, I think you took a cool and interesting angle to the prompt.
I kind of like the idea that "good" wasn't that hard to achieve. It wasn't clear to me if part of gift eligibility was dependent on the way a person died or if her husband wasn't "good" enough to receive it.
Based on your work here, I hope you have more "quick replies" during your lunch break :)
Ooh, this one was good! I quite liked it, thanks for sharing.