Resurrection: Acceptance

by Claude Tipton

The next day dawns and I begin my routine, comforted by its unfaltering sameness as I drive to work, earn my income and then return to my home much the same as when I left it... Routines change, of course, depending on where our journeys take us. We face challenges and succeed or fail. Sometimes the routine changes as we travel different roads, taking this fork or that along our paths, sometimes making right decisions and sometimes not. And then one day death comes calling and the routine changes in an awful way. The phone rings, perhaps, and the voice on the line tells us what we are not prepared to hear. There''s been an accident, the voice says, or an act of random violence, or an unforeseen and undiagnosed failure in the anatomy of someone we love. Think now of that backup on the interstate you travel each morning and how annoyed you are when your routine gets interrupted amid the screaming sirens of the ambulance and police cars. Think now of the headlines in the daily newspaper that document the never-ending carnage brought by war and street crime. Has someone died? Do you care? You will when that phone call comes. The story you are about to read is about death, too, but of a different kind. In this story death has established its own routine, and it announces itself in a doctor''s office. When a terminal illness takes someone''s life, the loved ones, especially those who provide the care for the terminally ill, endure along with the victim the long months and, sometimes years, that lead from the day of diagnosis to the day of rest. Resurrection, Part Acceptance is the story of one such journey.

100 pages, Paperback

Published January 13, 2006