In the school of mortality, we experience tenderness, love

Host: The hospital hallway was washed in pale light, the kind that feels neither alive nor dead — just suspended. The smell of antiseptic clung to the air, sharp and sterile, fighting against the faint trace of lilies from a nearby room. It was late, the kind of late when even time seems too tired to move. Jack sat by the window, his silhouette framed by the flicker of distant streetlights, while Jeeny stood by the vending machine, her hands wrapped around a paper cup of lukewarm coffee. Outside, snowflakes drifted like slow, falling memories.

Host: In the stillness, the machines in the ward hummed — steady, mechanical breaths that reminded them both how fragile real ones could be.

Jack: (staring out the window) “You know, Jeeny, they say this place teaches you about life. But all I see are people learning how to die.”

Host: His voice was low, roughened by fatigue and something deeper — the ache that comes from watching too many goodbyes.

Jeeny: (turning toward him) “Maybe that’s the point. We call it the hospital, but it’s really the school of mortality, isn’t it? Every person here… learning what matters before the bell rings.”

Jack: (half-smiling) “You sound like a preacher.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. Or maybe I’ve just been here too long.”

Host: She crossed the floor, her steps soft against the linoleum, the sound of each one echoing faintly through the hollow corridor.

Jack: “Bednar once said, ‘In the school of mortality, we experience tenderness, love, kindness, happiness, sorrow, disappointment, pain…’” (he pauses, his voice tightening) “and he forgot the waiting — that long, endless waiting for things to make sense.”

Jeeny: “He didn’t forget it, Jack. He just wrapped it inside all those other words. Waiting is tenderness sometimes. Waiting is love.”

Host: Jack turned to face her then, his eyes weary, the faint stubble shadowing his jaw making him look older than thirty-five.

Jack: “You really believe all this has meaning? The sickness, the loss, the—” (his hand gestured vaguely, as if trying to touch something invisible) “—the constant ache?”

Jeeny: “I do. I think it’s the only way we grow. Every pain is a lesson written in the language of eternity.”

Host: Her words hung in the air, soft but deliberate, like snow landing on glass.

Jack: “That sounds poetic. But when you’re the one bleeding, it doesn’t feel like poetry. It feels like punishment.”

Jeeny: “It feels like both sometimes. But even punishment teaches.”

Host: Jack rubbed his temples, the light from the hall catching the silver chain around his neck, the one that held a small cross. It glimmered faintly, like a stubborn spark that refused to go out.

Jack: “My mother used to say God doesn’t test us beyond what we can bear. She said that the night before she went into surgery.”

Jeeny: (gently) “And she didn’t come back.”

Jack: “No. And when the doctor told me she was gone, all I could think was — if God teaches through pain, then I must’ve graduated top of the class.”

Host: His laugh was hollow, the kind that dies before it ever becomes sound.

Jeeny: “That’s not how it works, Jack. The point isn’t to survive the lesson; it’s to understand it.”

Jack: “And what exactly am I supposed to understand? That life’s a classroom full of broken desks and no teacher?”

Jeeny: “Maybe the teacher’s quiet because He wants to see what you’ve learned.”

Host: The snow outside thickened, covering the streetlights in soft white halos. The world looked almost kind from up there — distant, muted, forgiving.

Jack: “You ever notice how they call it a ‘miracle’ when someone survives, but never when someone learns to accept they won’t?”

Jeeny: (nodding slowly) “Acceptance is its own miracle. Some people never reach it. It’s easier to curse the test than to see the wisdom in it.”

Jack: “And yet the pain never stops.”

Jeeny: “No. But it changes. It becomes… holy, in a way.”

Host: He looked at her then, his eyes searching — for anger, for naivety, for something to fight against. But all he found was stillness.

Jack: “You make suffering sound sacred.”

Jeeny: “Maybe it is. Every tear, every heartbreak — it stretches the soul. You can’t touch eternity without being broken open first.”

Host: A nurse passed by quietly, her shoes squeaking faintly. Somewhere down the hall, a monitor beeped, steady and rhythmic — the fragile pulse of life continuing.

Jack: (sighing) “Do you ever get tired of forgiving the world?”

Jeeny: “Every day. But I do it anyway. Because if I stop, I’ll forget how to love.”

Host: Her coffee cup trembled in her hands, a ripple disturbing the surface. The heat had long gone, but she held it like it was something sacred — a small act of holding on.

Jack: “When my daughter was born, I thought I finally understood love. Then she died, and I realized I knew nothing.”

Jeeny: (softly) “Maybe that’s the real start of understanding. Love isn’t what we feel when things go right; it’s what we still give when they go wrong.”

Host: The clock ticked toward midnight. Outside, the city was asleep, wrapped in the hush of falling snow.

Jack: “If mortality’s a school, Jeeny, I’m flunking every class.”

Jeeny: (smiling sadly) “Then you’re right where you’re supposed to be. Every saint was a dropout once.”

Host: Her smile reached her eyes, though it shimmered with tears. Jack looked at her — not with belief yet, but with a kind of fragile curiosity, as if maybe, for the first time, he wanted to believe there was something more than this aching world.

Jack: “You really think this pain — this whole mess — is preparing us for eternity?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Because eternity isn’t some faraway heaven. It’s the moment we choose to love again after being shattered.”

Host: The lights dimmed slightly as the hospital entered its night phase, the hum of machines deepening, softer now, like a lullaby for the weary.

Jack: “Then maybe eternity isn’t waiting. Maybe it’s already here — just hidden inside the cracks.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Mortality isn’t a curse, Jack. It’s a classroom where love is the only real subject.”

Host: They sat in silence, side by side by the window, watching the snow fall. The city lights blurred through the glass, each flake a fragment of some celestial language they couldn’t yet read.

Host: And in that quiet, the truth seemed to settle gently between them — that every bruise, every sorrow, every fleeting joy was a lesson written not in ink, but in experience. That tenderness and pain were not opposites, but partners in the same divine education.

Host: Jack’s hand moved slightly, brushing against Jeeny’s, a simple, human gesture that carried the weight of everything unspoken. She didn’t pull away. Neither did he.

Host: The camera panned outward — the window, the snow, the two figures bathed in soft light, their reflections faint but real.

Host: The world beyond the glass was cold and infinite. But inside, two souls sat side by side in the school of mortality — learning, failing, forgiving, and loving — preparing not for escape, but for understanding.

And as the snow fell endlessly, the lesson continued:
that every wound is a classroom,
and every breath, a teacher.