I was the only child born to Josephine Perry that survived. Mama

Host:
The rain had fallen all evening, soft and relentless, tracing silver veins down the windowpane. A dim lamp glowed in the corner of the room, casting a pool of amber light over the worn armchair where Jeeny sat — her hands folded around a faded photograph, her eyes shadowed with thought.

The air was thick with quiet — the kind that feels too heavy to break. Jack stood by the fireplace, his hands tucked into his pockets, his jaw set, his face half-lit, half-lost to the dark.

On the coffee table between them lay a folded sheet of paper, creased and yellowed, its edges soft from being read too many times. In delicate, trembling handwriting, it bore the words that would become the night’s haunting question:

“I was the only child born to Josephine Perry that survived. Mama had six other children before me, and all had passed very quickly and very young, all succumbing to a combination of illness and disease and the lack of strength to fight off both.”
— Isabel Sanford

Jeeny:
(whispering, more to herself than to him)
It’s a strange kind of loneliness, isn’t it? To be the one who lives when all the others don’t.

Jack:
(turning toward her)
It’s not strange, Jeeny. It’s luck. Some live, some die. The universe doesn’t care. There’s no meaning in who stays and who goes.

Jeeny:
But don’t you think there has to be, Jack? Otherwise — why keep surviving at all?

Host:
The flame in the hearth flickered, bending under the draft. The light caught the faint tremor in her voice, the way her fingers brushed the photograph like one touches a wound that never fully healed.

Jack:
(quietly)
Meaning doesn’t come from survival. It comes from what you do with it. Isabel Sanford — she lived when her six brothers and sisters didn’t. That wasn’t purpose, Jeeny. That was biology.

Jeeny:
Maybe. But she made that life into something. She built it into art, into work, into laughter. Don’t you see? The very act of living becomes sacred when it’s not guaranteed.

Jack:
(skeptically)
You always call things sacred when they’re just accidents with poetry attached.

Jeeny:
And you always call miracles “accidents” so you don’t have to feel them.

Host:
A crack of thunder rolled through the sky, the rain answering in sheets against the roof. Jack’s silhouette shifted, his shoulders taut, his voice rough.

Jack:
You think there’s nobility in suffering, Jeeny. But pain doesn’t make us holy. It just reminds us we’re breakable.

Jeeny:
No — it reminds us we’re alive. Isabel’s mother buried six children. Six, Jack. Can you even imagine that kind of grief? That kind of emptiness? And yet, she still tried again. That’s not biology — that’s faith.

Jack:
Faith in what? A God who watched it happen? A fate that kept her spinning the same wheel of loss?

Jeeny:
Faith in the possibility that life might still choose her once more. Faith that maybe this time, it would hold.

Jack:
And what if it hadn’t? What if Isabel had been the seventh to die? Would her mother’s faith still mean something then?

Jeeny:
Yes. Because faith isn’t about winning. It’s about trying again, even when the world gives you no reason to.

Host:
The room grew warmer, though the rain outside still hissed against the windows. The firelight reflected in Jeeny’s eyes, making them shine like molten amber. She spoke not as one defending an argument, but as one telling a truth she’d lived in her bones.

Jeeny:
You know what’s strange, Jack? We always talk about strength as something loud — soldiers, victories, achievements. But look at Isabel’s mother. Her kind of strength was silent, tender, invisible. Just to get up after six losses — that’s strength enough to shame the mountains.

Jack:
(softly, after a long pause)
You make it sound like endurance is heroism.

Jeeny:
Isn’t it? We celebrate the ones who conquer, but not the ones who just continue. We tell stories of men who fight to the death, but not of women who live through it, over and over, and still love.

Jack:
(quiet, almost reverent)
So that’s what you mean when you say “warrior.”

Jeeny:
Exactly. A woman like Josephine Perry — she wasn’t given armor or reward. Her strength wasn’t recorded in books. But it lived — in Isabel’s first breath, in every child born after pain, in every heartbeat that dares to begin again.

Host:
The rain began to ease, falling now in soft, irregular drips. Jack walked to the table, picked up the paper, and ran his fingers across the words as if feeling the weight of history in each syllable.

Jack:
So what you’re saying is — she survived for all of them.

Jeeny:
Yes. For the ones who couldn’t. That’s the thing about being the only one left — your life stops being yours alone. It becomes a continuation of every story that never got to finish.

Jack:
That sounds like a lot to carry.

Jeeny:
It is. But it’s also a gift. Survival isn’t guilt, Jack. It’s inheritance. You carry the strength of all those who couldn’t.

Jack:
And what if you don’t want that? What if the weight’s too much?

Jeeny:
Then you breathe, and live anyway — not because it’s easy, but because they never got the chance to.

Host:
The silence returned — deep, almost holy. The fire crackled softly, the rain a quiet applause beyond the walls.

Jack sat beside her, his voice quieter than the flames.

Jack:
You know, I used to think “strength” meant winning, outsmarting pain. But maybe it’s just what happens when you have no other choice.

Jeeny:
(smiling faintly)
That’s what makes it real, Jack. When it’s not a choice, but a continuation — when you live because the world still needs your heartbeat.

Jack:
And you think Isabel carried all of that — the ghosts of her six brothers and sisters?

Jeeny:
I think she did. And I think that’s what made her voice so steady, her laugh so loud. You can always tell when someone has known loss — they live louder, not because they’ve forgotten, but because they’ve learned how precious the noise is.

Host:
The firelight began to dim, the flames settling into quiet embers. Jeeny placed the photograph on the table — a picture of a young woman with bright eyes, frozen forever in laughter.

Jeeny:
(softly)
She lived, Jack. And that’s everything. That’s the miracle.

Jack:
(nods slowly)
Maybe that’s what survival really is — not just a continuation, but an act of defiance.

Jeeny:
Exactly. Every breath says: “You didn’t take me. Not yet.”

Host:
Outside, the rain had stopped. A thin mist clung to the window, blurring the city lights into soft halos. The air smelled like something new, something reborn.

Jack reached over, closed the book, and looked at Jeeny — not as a skeptic or a philosopher, but as a man finally seeing the quiet sacredness in survival itself.

Host:
Perhaps that’s what Isabel’s words had meant all along — not just the memory of loss, but the music of endurance that comes after. The way grief can sculpt strength, and how life, once fragile, can still rise from its own ashes with quiet, unyielding grace.

The last of the fire flickered. The room breathed.

And in that stillness — between two people and a single surviving story — the world felt, for one heartbeat, both heavy and holy.

Fade out.