Humble

“I understand why God created death. How else would he be God?”

The same thought always brought Allan Copeland out of his dreams. It was a soothing thought, as soothing as the comfortable weight of his wife’s chest against his back. She rose and fell with every tickling breath, and he felt himself alert enough to enjoy it. He always woke her when he slid free of the bed, no matter how slow or how careful. The way she’d moan and bury herself in the blankets brought a smile to his face. She was his morning coffee. The idea, however, was his hot shower.

Toast and eggs, and off he went, in his reasonably exotic, but not overstated car. He believed in humility – a certain amount of grace. He earned enough to splurge, but he kept the impulse to a minimum. His wife had sheets and books and furniture. She drove to her office in a Jaguar, bouncing to her iPod or clocking in early with her Bluetooth. He preferred a simple phone with a medical dictionary, an American sedan. He had a certain image to maintain.

The lab coat and the sharp dress shirt always felt dishonest to him, like he was trying to make a dirty job clean. He wasn’t paid or prayed to for the times when he applied tongue depressors and put knit caps on his patients’ heads. No, he was like God – he was remembered most in the red and black and brown of life, the green of illness and the sick pale white of flesh gone wrong. The palms were always pale. The palms touch God, he thought to himself, and found the idea pleasant enough.

That morning, he gave birth to three children, two boys and a girl. The mothers were so proud, but all they’d done was burst. He’d arranged the delicate chemistry, coaxed and called free a bounty from their wet, pink earth. He’d held those little lives before they even saw them. He was the receiver, the welcomer, the psychopomp.

He lost a child today. The hour was so quiet, defying the noise throughout the halls. Heads were low. Tears were shed. The other mothers and fathers looked at him with desperate eyes. They could smell the death in their hearts. They knew that he could keep the cold at bay, keep the chill from the little fingers and the little hearts. He proudly took their prayers – he shared them with God, those that didn’t reach him already.

Allan Copeland understood. He understood why God created death.

How else could he be God?