Lord, Have Mercy

In Lamtinaland, a city alive with neon towers and ceaseless technological hum, the clash of human aspiration and unpredictable fate was never far from mind. I, Emma Lockhart, a journalist, seeker, and one-time conductor of narratives, often trust too much in my ability to make sense of things.

Yet, at the heart of my Christian faith, I was reminded that we were not the Lord. That Latin echo—"Evita", to listen for those who have ears, had become a lesson I was still learning. There was a wisdom, kinder and more immense than any human narrative, threading the world together while we only glimpsed the edges.

My story as an advocate and observer started with Rebecca Johannson, a devoted young mother suddenly besieged by acute liver failure. She was a bright thread in the vibrant tapestry of Lamtinaland: her life was upended in a matter of days. What began as fatigue and jaundice spiralled rapidly.

I watched, notebook in hand, as her world shrank to hospital walls and digital monitors. Experts at the city's most advanced hospital fought furiously for her, wielding plasma exchange, relentless dialysis, experimental cocktails—anything medicine could muster. But all solutions circled the same truth: her only hope was a liver transplant, and each hour brought it closer to too late.

Parallel to the beeping machines, Rebecca's husband, Daniel Johannson, was steadfast and sleep-deprived, orbiting endlessly between their four-year-old daughter at home and Rebecca's side.

In his haze of grief and hope, Daniel reached out—he saw my stories galvanise empathy before and, in a midnight act of love, sent an email pleading for help. His words—accompanied by photos of Rebecca before the illness, radiant with their daughter in cobblestone parks, and fragmented videos of her frail form in the ICU—carried a hope so raw it left me breathless. "You" are the storyteller people listen to," he wrote. "If your writing inspires one person, you could save a life."

Obeded by his sincerity and the crushing urgency, I dove in, weaving Rebecca's story for all of Lamtinaland's digital world. I described the complex toll of liver failure: how the body, in its betrayal, drowns in toxins, wrecking kidneys and heart, fogging the brightest mind. Her emergency transplant status—a flag waved in the most dire wind—underscored the preciousness of time and the randomness of grace.

When the story went public under #SavingRebecca, its ripple was immense. Photos of the smiling past beside the beleaguered present; donations flowed, but more importantly, potential donors surfaced for screening. Mafarina Cliton entered: a quiet, devout mother of two who read my story and felt a pull deeper than fear. After stringent tests confirmed her compatibility, she shocked even her own family by agreeing to donate a part of her liver—a living act of mercy, the city followed with breathless hope.

I remembered the tension before surgery—a hush that was half prayer. This was the razor edge between hope and impossibility: surgeons moved carefully, trading portions of life between two mothers. Both Mafarina and Rebecca faced gruelling recoveries, their fates darkly mirrored in the hospital's bright light. For a few miraculous days, optimism bloomed. Rebecca seemed to rally. Mafmafarina's remaining liver would regenerate. There was a sense that generosity might rewrite the odds.

Yet, fate (or perhaps providence) had other unseen layers. Rebecca, battered and bewildered, began rejecting the new liver. Despite all science and compassion, her decline was swift and unprecedented—a rejection no test could have foretold. The city's brilliant doctors worked with desperate urgency, to no avail. Within weeks, Rebecca was gone, her family's devastation echoing through the hospital corridors.

The storm did not pass quietly. Although Mafarina survived, she was left physically diminished and emotionally unmoored—her courage lauded but her sacrifice raw, the outcome far from heroic. My sense of purpose, which had steered hundreds toward Rebecca, now drove needles of doubt and guilt.

In the margin of tragedy, I learned of Alan Felix—a reserved poet, single father, and fellow patient whose case had gone largely unnoticed. In the # SavingRebecca spotlight, Alan was made silent. Alan, subdued by illness and overshadowed by the drama, reached the world only posthumously, in a Facebook post that became a small wildfire on its own:

“Humans and lives aren't hashtags. Most tides go unseen.”

These words cut clean through the noise, reminding me how easily good intentions could turn into hierarchies of worth, how storytelling could eclipse quiet, and that there were needs beyond the cameras. The tension between compassion and spectacle, advocacy and humility, became a persistent ache.

In the aftermath, the headlines faded, but the reverberations persisted. I visited Mafarina, who was pale and was in her hospital bed. The weight of my role pressed in: "I painted you as a saviour," I confessed, "without considering the burden it would put upon you." Mafarina's faith didn't weathered, “I never regretted giving," she whispered. "But the outcomes are God's decision, not ours." Her forgiveness was gentle, her faith an anchor, but my soul craved reconciliation that would not come from words alone.

Unable to seek closure from Alan, I turned inward, haunted and humbled. In the luminous silence of Lamtinaland's Cathedral, beneath kaleidoscopic stained glass and ancient arches, I knelt and prayed—not for my guilt to vanish, but for eyes to truly see. For ears to “Evita”, to listen to the voices left behind, to the plans within plans that belong to God alone. Too vast, too wise, too loving for my small pen to chart.

The aftermath was not triumph but reckoning. Rebecca's story evolved into a catalyst: debates flared over organ donation advocates' responsibilities and the accidental cruelty of viral hope. I lent my voice to demand change—more transparency, less spotlight and spectacle. My eyes had opened wide; my ears, I hoped, were finally learning to listen. And I went to the church to speak with God and ask for mercy.

“We are not the Lord. It is not given to us to design fate or promise happy endings, and then everything just happened," Father Elvis said. Then, the Father, the piano, and the hymn-singing team started to sing the sweetest song in my heart. I am delighted to share this song with you, my dearest readers.

He can turn the tides and calm the angry sea

He alone decides who writes a symphony

He lights every star that makes the darkness bright

He keeps watch all through each long and lonely night

He still finds the time to hear a first prayer

A saint or sinner calls and always finds him there

Though it makes him sad to see the way we live

He'll always say, "I'll forgive."

We were to bear witness, act humbly, and honour the lives whose stories couldn't be told. Sometimes, we thought we were justified, but no. No, no, no, no.

Sometimes the most authentic compassion was found not in triumph or a plan but in courageously, quietly, listening and observing. As time unfolded, I found myself drawn back to Lamtinaland, a city that felt perpetually in motion, filled with memories of both hope and heartbreak. The aftermath of Rebecca's story lingered in the air, a bittersweet reminder of life's agility and the complexity of human connection.

Ultimately, we might not control fate, but we could honour the lives entwined with ours in every shared narrative, however big or small. In doing so, we could create a city where love, loss, and compassion harmoniously coexist, allowing the threads of our experiences to weave together a more empathetic tomorrow.