clicking on the instagram page attached to this video, he spent the rest of that night scrolling through videos of heaven, hell and healing.
Thomas cracked his eyelids ajar as his mum shook him awake.
“We need to go to the hospital now!”, she exclaimed.
“Eh?”, Thomas murmured, still half-asleep.
“There’s no time to explain”, replied his mum. Thomas suddenly became aware of the urgency of her tone and lept up from the bed. He charged down the stairs behind her, dashed out the door, ran round the back of the car and jumped into the passenger seat.
“He’s okay, right?…
…Mummy?
Mum!”.
Thomas bombarded his mum with questions as she hurtled through lines of crimson lights. She didn’t let a word escape her mouth that Thomas could understand. However, he stared at her lips which, bouncing up and down at one hundred miles an hour, seemed to be releasing a soft buzzing sound.
Suddenly, Thomas was transported back to the years where is mum would help him bathe at the end of each day. There he was, cradled in her arms as she glossed her fingertips across the service of the soapy sea of warmth. He would always shake with excitement as she lowered him into his marble bed. His mum would, every time, gently sing…
“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch; like me. I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see.”
“Again, mummy!”
“God loves you so much Tommy”, she chuckled.
Smiling tenderly, she watched as bubbles danced around where Thomas lay. Then it happened. Her lips began to move just like the water, darting around and popping.
Buzz.
His mum fell to her knees when they finally got through to the hospital room. Thomas’ younger brother lay prostrate on blue covers. Something about that blueness unsettled Thomas. It was a dissonant, offensive hue. His dark baggy jeans were still on though is torso was exposed, nestled with cords and wires which all gathered around a gaping crevice under his right shoulder. A nurse placed her hand on his mum’s shoulder, though something about this gesture seemed cold and emotionless to Thomas.
“His pulse is steady, but we won’t know if the surgery has worked until we wake him up”, said the nurse.
“Oh my darling”, sobbed Thomas’ mum. “How long until then?”
“The surgeons are closing up the incision, any minute now they will administer the anesthetic reversal agent”, the nurse replied.
Thomas’ mum’s eyes bounced around the room until she met his gaze. He was already crawling towards her as she scooped her eighteen year-old son into a tight embrace. Her cheek kissed his the edge of his earlobe as she cried,
“Tommy, I know you said you wanted nothing to do with church or God, but I need you to pray with me”
“Please.”
Thomas waited for a moment, then he hesitantly allowed himself to nod.
“I don’t know what to say”, he whispered.
“You don’t need to say anything Tommy, just open your lips and let your heart push out a sound”.
This story was submitted as part of the King’s Study Phase of the Gen Z Role Models Project. Added April 2026.
“clicking on the instagram page attached to this video.” (S190) © 2026 by The Gen Z Role Models Project is licensed under CC BY 4.0
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