No coincidence. | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: No coincidence. | Previous Challenge Entry
By Danielle King
01/17/18
LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE
SEND A PRIVATE COMMENT
ADD TO MY FAVORITES

Gazing at the wall clock was not my idea of celebrating New Year’s Eve, especially seeing as it was facing my hospital bed. I noted every second tick by, because that’s all there was to do.

The monitor confining me to my to my bed was my sole company since my husband left for home. Buzzing Nurse Grim to unhitch me for a brief visit to the loo could be likened to a break in the clouds on a dismal day. Yet even she was a cheerless soul.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen! One minute I’m making trifles, sipping wine and decorating fairy cakes, the next I’m in a side room with an IV infusion running in the right arm, and that blessed, bleeping monitor to my left. And I’d been there for hours.

In the absence of any home comforts, not even my reading specs nor a chocolate bar to nibble on, I frantically tried to make myself sleep.

On the stroke of midnight the world outside my window erupted. Fireworks popped and banged as rockets and flares lit up the skies. London’s Big Ben would be ringing in the New Year to the nation. And I was all alone in a hospital bed, missing the party.

I’m not given to self-pity, but since sleep was eluding me, my thoughts, jolted by a drunken rendition of Auld Lang Sine from somewhere in the streets below, trailed off to a bygone era.

Melancholy would sum up my mood. Nostalgic rumination on a life lived and loved, filled with precious souls, most of who were no longer with us. Mum and Dad, Gran and Grandad, lots of aunts, uncles and cousins, all gone. I hadn’t planned a pity party so moved swiftly on to the living.

My siblings, old but still standing. My loyal friends and my husband and our middle-aged babies. Life is sweet when there are people to love. But right now I knew they would all be worrying about me.

A trolley rattling down the corridor came to a halt by my room. They’d surely got the wrong bay as there was one bed only and I was occupying it. But no, “Sorry sunshine,” smiled the porter. “You’ve got company. We’ll put a screen between the beds.”

I looked on in disbelief as they scurried around. “New Year’s Eve darling,” he offered by way of compensation. “Be thankful it’s not a bloke.”

My roommate, a dishevelled young teen with two bandaged wrists was not open for conversation. Her silence told me to mind my own business, so I respected her wishes. I reverted to my clock gazing activities interspersed with a spot of counting the primrose pattern on the curtain.

“I was fed up,” said a small voice from the other side of the great divide. It was two hours since I’d asked the question.

“I’m pretty much fed up myself,” I replied. “I’ve been here since yesterday and there’s not a lot to do.”

“What’s up with you?” she asked.

“Don’t know yet. Kept blacking out.”

“Wish I could black out… Forever.”

With that the conversation ended for the night.

By 6am I’d had little sleep and I ached all over, but I’d had a very long conversation with the Lord. It had sickened me to think that someone so young had tried to take her life. Be it a serious attempt, mental illness or simply attention seeking behaviour, the girl needed help and guidance. I never saw myself as a counsellor, yet I knew somehow I must befriend this lost soul.

It was a struggle to get anything meaningful by way of conversation, so I simply rabbited on about my own life and family, without expecting a reply. Suddenly she interjected with, “Sue, you know this God thing you’ve got…” It was music to my ears.

Eighteen months have passed and Shaz still regularly attends the youth group at our church. What’s more she occasionally brings one or two other youngsters with her. We’re all very proud of the way she’s turning her life around and the encouragement she extends to other young people who have lost their way in life.

The doctors never did find the cause of my random blackouts, but they eventually stopped happening. People insist there must be a reason and I agree. It’s no coincidence that I was in the right place, at the right time, on that mind-bogglingly tedious, humdrum New Year’s Eve.

PREVIOUS ENTRY | NEXT ENTRY
SUBMIT YOUR ENTRY FOR THIS WEEK'S CHALLENGE

The opinions expressed by authors may not necessarily reflect the opinion of FaithWriters.com.

Accept Jesus as Your Lord and Savior Right Now - CLICK HERE
JOIN US at FaithWriters for Free. Grow as a Writer and Spread the Gospel.