Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Hope (05/04/06)
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TITLE: Fragile Fingers, Healing Hand | Previous Challenge Entry
By Caitlynn Lowe
05/09/06 -
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He had gotten the call only a half hour ago, yet it seemed as though time stopped and eternity was held inside the moments it took him to arrive there. Desperately, he ran to the desk of the Emergency Room receptionist in search of information.
“Please, miss, where is my wife? Where is my Monica?”
The receptionist looked up at him with sympathetic eyes. Hesitantly, she asked, “Are you Mr. Jones?”
“Yes, yes, I am. Where is Monica? Is she OK? Can I see her? Please, I have to know,” he replied hastily.
The receptionist paused and bit her lower lip, trying to keep an emotionless face. She knew the woman’s fate, and she also knew that it would break the poor man’s heart. Finally gathering the fortitude to look up, she sighed and said, “Mr. Jones…the doctor will be out shortly to tell you everything.”
Robert caught the brief glimpse of sadness that the woman sitting in front of him had in her eyes. The meaning behind that sadness resonated in his heart; he knew what had happened. Afraid to hear the truth, yet desperate to know it for sure, he pleaded with her, “Please, you have to tell me what you know. I need to know. I…I can’t bear it. Tell me, is my Monica…is she…?”
“Sir,” replied the receptionist, “I’m afraid you’ll just have to wait for the doctor. I can’t tell you anything, I’m not allowed.”
“But…”
Before he could say another word, the doctor stepped in and called to him. “Mr. Robert Jones?”
“Yes, that’s me. What is it, Doctor? What’s happened to my wife?”
“Come with me, please, sir,” the doctor said, motioning to Robert to follow. Shortly after they walked through the doors from the lobby into the inner halls of the Emergency Room, he started again. “Mr. Jones…I’m afraid that your wife was in a pretty serious car accident. We tried everything we could to save her, but she passed away before she even made it to the operating table.”
Robert stopped cold in his footsteps. The words rang in his ears, teasing him with their harshness and filling his heart with pain and grief. “No…it…it can’t be true. Please, God, no…” he cried.
The doctor paused before adding, “We were, however, able to save your child. It was a premature birth, and I’m afraid she’s not out of the water yet, but the delivery was successful. Hopefully after a few weeks, you’ll be able to take your new daughter home with you.”
Robert’s eyes widened at the word. “Daughter? I…I have a daughter? Our child…she…she was born?”
“Yes, Mr. Jones. Would you like to see her now?”
“Please, Doctor. I would. I’d like to see my daughter.”
Robert followed the Doctor down a series of halls, until finally he was led to the window of a room where a fragile, pink infant breathed heavily inside a monstrosity of a machine. After sanitizing himself properly, he was allowed inside to look at his tiny newborn daughter. Tears of joy began to fall down his face as he watched her petite fingers curl up into a little fist, and he laughed with relief as he watched her beautiful brown eyes open and study him through the glass of the incubator. Those eyes were the same as his Monica’s, and when he looked back into them, he realized that his beloved wife would be watching them both now from Heaven.
“Thank you, Lord,” he sighed. “Thank you for letting our daughter live.”
Just then, a nurse walked in and greeted him. “Hello, Mr. Jones. She’s a beautiful baby. Very strong, very determined.”
“Yes,” he said, his mind still lost in her eyes. “She takes after her mother.”
“Do you have a name picked out for her yet?”
Robert paused only briefly before answering, “Yes. She’s my…mine and Monica’s…little baby Hope.”
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I love the title, the action and the emotion. You probably could have strengthened the piece with more sensory description. Still, an excellent job.