Resuscitated: a Covid-19 Tragedy

By Merry Christian

It has been six months since Sarah Billingsly was admitted to a nursing home for end-of-life care. Now that she is being released to return to her house, Sarah knows that she has been provided a healing miracle, thanks to a doctor who has cured her of cancer. Clearly, she has been given a second chance and vows to be grateful and better serve her Lord. But what Sarah does not realize is that life is about to give her another unexpected jolt.

While doing her best to navigate through her extra-inning in life, Sarah downsizes, prioritizes, and mobilizes for the gift of a second chance. But just as Sarah finds her place and a new identity as Merry Christian, a global pandemic hits and changes everything. Once again, her friendships, loyalty, love, gratitude, and Christian service are tested in ways that she could never have imagined.

In this insightful, meditative Christian allegory, a cancer survivor provided with the miraculous gift of healing considers her discipleship and life priorities, even as a new crisis challenges her and the world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jun 5, 2020
• ISBN: 9781973692676

Merry Christian

Merry Christian has a Bachelor in Science in Education, is a professional homeschooler, and has taught literature and writing classes at a local library.

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Copyright © 2020 Merry Christian.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by

any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying,

recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system

without the written permission of the author except in the case of

brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents,

organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products

of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or

links contained in this book may have changed since publication and

may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those

of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher,

and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are

models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Scripture quotations taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

ISBN: 978-1-9736-9268-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-9269-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-9267-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020910259

WestBow Press rev. date: 6/4/2020

To my reader:

There are many spiritual thoughts presented in Resuscitated – A COVID-19 Tragedy. I hope that you will take the time to ingest, chew, and digest these ideas. The discussion questions for each chapter at the end of the book will guide you to a deeper meaning meant by the author. These questions will also facilitate a lively discourse in a discussion group setting.

If you are a Christian literature teacher or homeschooler, I have written a comprehensive student guide and teacher’s manual to accompany my book. As a nation we no longer use literature to inculcate Christian values in our youth. I have written the novel and these texts as a tool to help you instill Christian love, gratitude, and service in your students.

I hope that this book resuscitates each reader to a closer walk with God and a more committed service to mankind.

With Christian love,

Merry Christian

"Some books are to be tasted,

others to be swallowed,

and some few to be chewed and digested."

-Francis Bacon

But be ye doers of the Word,

and not hearers only,

deceiving your own selves.

- James 1:22

CONTENTS

Chapter 1 The Homecoming

Chapter 2 Neighbors

Chapter 3 Buyers

Chapter 4 Phone Calls

Chapter 5 Shopping

Chapter 6 Dreams

Chapter 7 Worship Services

Chapter 8 It’s a Done Deal

Chapter 9 A New Car

Chapter 10 Return to the Nursing Home

Chapter 11 Phone Calls

Chapter 12 Moving Forward

Chapter 13 Reunion

Chapter 14 It’s the Little Things

Chapter 15 Ladies’ Luncheon

Chapter 16 Advocacy

Chapter 17 Too Late

Chapter 18 The Funeral

Chapter 19 A Final Stroll

Chapter 20 Moving In

Chapter 21 Headline

Chapter 22 The Lawyer

Chapter 23 Settling In

Chapter 24 The Prison

Chapter 25 Into a Routine

Chapter 26 The Bottom Falls Out

Chapter 27 A New Normal

Chapter 28 To New York

Chapter 29 Adaptations

Chapter 30 Encomium

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CHAPTER 1

THE HOMECOMING

I

t was a beautiful spring day with azure skies and fuzzy, cotton-ball clouds. As Sarah gazed meditatively out her window on the other world, she was excited, yet apprehensive, about going home. She knew that she was still physically feeble, but home would facilitate rehabilitation so much more quickly than the personal care facility; the primary healing parameters were now incremental physical activity and psychological adjustment. Besides, her health care insurance would no longer allow her to remain in the care center.

It had been six months since Sarah had crossed her home hearth, and she wondered in what condition the premises would be. She comforted herself in that the house should have weathered the winter without problems: she had kept it heated, the water had been turned off, and her close neighbors and children had promised to check on the property periodically. Sarah kept reminding herself that she would have to ease back into her former habits. The spring cleaning and accumulated dust would have to wait until her strength matured. Besides, dearer to her heart was the garden and landscaping. She must not let the weeds get ahead of her and speculated about how much winter damage the landscaping had incurred.

A cheery, Well, here we are, interrupted her musings as Jeannie maneuvered a wheelchair into the room. It seemed so ironic to Sarah that policy dictated that she be transported to the waiting cab in such a contrivance; she wouldn’t have a wheelchair at home. Sarah smiled at the absurdity as thoughts flashbacked to her hospital discharge after her fourth delivery, and she was transferred by the same conveyance to her car only to be back on her feet caring for a newborn and a brood of three upon returning home.

All of Sarah’s belongings with which she had arrived had been repacked into the wheeled suitcase and readied for departure - this time, unlike last fall, packed for home and packed for a future. Settling into the wheelchair and grabbing the extended handle of the baggage, Sarah glanced around her cell of six months and then nodded toward the door. As they passed through the hall to the lobby, patients called out to Sarah and wished her well and many good years to come. As she replied and waved, she thought how gracious those greetings, for these patients all knew that their days on earth were numbered. For this mortal life, they faced each sunrise without hope. A wave of remorse flooded her soul as she wrestled with her secret.

A crowd had gathered in the lobby to see her departure. Sarah’s eyes scoped the assembly, and her heart was downtrodden when her eyes did not see Dr. Bush. She knew that Friday was his day to visit Community Compassionate Care Center in another town, but she still had held out hope to see him one more time before her discharge. As her caregivers bid her goodbye, she saw a few misty eyes. Why the sadness? Sarah asked.

These are not tears of sadness, Sarah. These are tears of hope and joy. These are happy tears, Jeannie expressed for all. Your leaving is very emotional for us as we have never experienced a hospice patient recovering as you have. Hope now springs forth for others in our care. We all wish you the best. Again guilt stabbed at Sarah’s heart.

After all the goodbyes, the cabdriver started the engine. Do you have a GPS address for me, ma’am? the cabdriver asked.

No, sir. I have lived in this area for more than five decades and know my way home. I’ll guide you as we travel, Sarah said. On second thought, the address is 286 Route 380, Paradise Valley. I’ll just enjoy the chauffeured ride and beautiful spring scenery and not worry about directing you.

Well, sit back and relax. You’ll be home in no time.

Relax; for some reason she couldn’t calm herself and wanted to cry. Like her caregivers, Sarah was bursting with emotions, but Sarah was conflicted and grappled with discordance.

Leaving the bustle of the city streets and traveling into the rural landscape began to calm Sarah and, more importantly, occupy her mind. Her spirits soared at seeing the verdant pastures with cattle placidly grazing their fenced bounds. As a youth living and working on a farm, this scene recalled nursing spring calves and frisking horses that hadn’t been ridden much in colder weather. Plowed fields brought the fragrance of moist, tilled loam and the remembrance of the aroma of freshly spread manure. They passed a child and his father flying a kite, which evoked many other fond memories, and, for the first time, even the disheveled forsythia with its yellow blossoms enthused her with spring fever. All her life such scenes had seemed almost mundane, but now the appreciation of such spring rebirth invigorated her. She wondered if the red-winged blackbirds were already trilling in her bottomland. That would complete a perfect spring day.

Sarah peered eagerly ahead for the earliest glimpse of her hilltop home, and as the car approached her beloved abode, she glanced furtively about to audit any winter damages. In seconds the cab rounded the left-hand curve and pulled into her blind driveway. In front of them was a breath-taking sight – a circular driveway whose center garden was resplendent with fuchsia pinks and sundry-colored bachelor buttons. These volunteers had never so thrilled her heart, and her eyes misted at their exuberant welcome. These self-seeding accidents were never one of her floral favorites, but they faithfully brought early, dazzling color to drab spring earth, and thus she had always suffered them to reseed; she pledged to cut some and put a bouquet on her kitchen booth table as soon as possible.

It was early afternoon, and the cheery sun was bone warming. The house, with its passive solar heating and facade of south-facing windows, would be toasty. She would not have to turn up the furnace thermostat, but she would have to open the water valve in the basement.

Opening the cab door brought an overwhelming inundation of lilac fragrance. These shrubs had been transplanted four decades earlier from the farm of her youth, and they always reminded her of her old family homestead. These were unequivocally her seasonal favorites, and she was always depressingly disappointed when a late spring frost robbed her of the lilac’s annual display and gift. She pledged that the lavender blossoms would also soon bedeck her dining room table.

After paying the cabdriver with refunded money from her nursing home personal account, the obliging gentleman carried her piece of luggage to the door and bid her adieu. Sarah waved as he drove off and then turned to go into the house. She wavered; she just had to walk the premises before entering.

The lilacs drew Sarah first; their fragrance was magnetic. When within reach, she pulled the shrub’s branches to her nose to inhale more deeply of the lavender blooms’ perfume. Such cologne the pinks and bachelor buttons lacked, but this deficiency was more than compensated for by those annuals’ longer flowering season, and the scraggly, unkempt growing habit of the bachelor buttons was mitigated by their attraction of the stunning and acrobatic American goldfinches that devoured the flowers’ seeds. Spring had always been Sarah’s favorite season, and the harsher the winter the sweeter the spring had been to her, but this year she would be even more appreciative of God’s handiwork. Aware of the singing, chirping background melodies, Sarah identified the rolling burble of robins, the twittering