Back from the Dead
© 1997 Don Rogers
A teenager's memory:
I asked for a gerbil for Christmas and Santa brought me one. (By the way this is when I began to suspect there wasn't a Santa because the instructions that were left on my note board for taking care of him - supposedly written by Santa - were in my mother's distinctive handwriting). I was to take care of him and be sure to cover his cage at night because our house gets pretty cold in the winter at night.
But one night I must have forgotten because I woke up in the morning and his cage was uncovered and he was stiff, dead I thought. My brother Rich, my oldest brother, who I used to not get along with very well and still don't, came in when he heard my crying and gave the gerbil, I had named him Herman, mouth to mouth and Herman came back to life and lived six more months.
I thought that was like Jesus and Lazarus.