Story Class Assignment 3 Synopsis

While dying in the hospital of kidney failure, Lucy Miller has an out of body experience and meets an angel named Dion, otherwise known as ‘Hands.’ The angel offers Lucy a choice to continue her life on earth: she can either have a kidney transplant, procured by divine intervention, and live; or, she can die. Lucy, in shock at finding herself in heaven and talking to a deity she has never believed in, agrees that she wants to continue her life as it was before she got sick; not understanding that her acceptance comes with a much higher price.

Once back in her body, Lucy goes through the process of receiving a new kidney and is sent home in excellent health. Once home, the angel Dion appears often to tell her what is needed from her to complete their bargain, as well as to give her assignments for helping people who are dying. The angel is so focused on teaching Lucy about God and heaven and the afterlife that she grows frustrated with all the information. After all, Lucy has never believed in a higher power and was quite a bitter patient before she was ‘saved.’ She is confused and not at all sure that she can fulfill the angel’s requests. She must come face to face with her failings as a person and what she finds shames her. She must overcome her shame in order to complete her assignments.

Lucy doesn’t understand Dion’s role in her life besides that of enlightened benefactor. Indeed, she is not aware that he is a physician ‘up above’ as he once was in life. Nor is she told of the angel’s real motivation in training her as a guardian angel on earth that will smooth the transition of the dying in their journeys to heaven. Dion’s real purpose is to attain a promotion in heaven where he would no longer have to treat apathetic souls for non existent ailments because they don’t grasp the fact that they are dead. Dion hides this from Lucy and in doing so creates conflict with God, his boss.

God’s purpose for Lucy’s brush with death and subsequent mission is twofold-- to gain her belief in Him, enlightening and enriching her life and relationships—and to use her newfound knowledge to help other people before they die to accept His love and existence, in order to be saved from becoming another apathetic soul lost in his or her own misery. However, God’s purpose for Dion remains hidden from everyone. God thinks that his angel Dion is still too cocky in death, although never as much as he was in life. God wants not to punish Dion by giving him an assignment that is so very tough to see through (Lucy), but to teach him some humility. God makes an appearance at the end of the chapters of the story and shares his full omniscience with the reader, but not Lucy or Dion. 

Lucy’s benevolent and enlightened husband, Jim, is wonderfully supportive of her transformation. However, she is unable to tell him of the events leading to her salvation; if she does, the bargain will be forfeit and she will die. Throughout the story, Lucy finds inventive and often hilarious ways of keeping her double life and motivations a secret from her university English teaching husband: even when she enrolls in his campus to pursue her nursing degree. Jim helps Lucy in her mission to ease the journey of dying souls by assisting them with making peace with the past and present; she has tasks that she must perform with these dying souls on earth and her husband Jim assists her in each one in some way, all without his knowledge.

Lucy’s mother Jane is a self-involved woman who expects her daughter to be the same way she was before she had her kidney transplant- bitter. Jane and Lucy have fed their pessimism off each other all Jane’s life. Now, Jane begins to change her attitude on so many levels that Jane is left angry and confused. Jane never changes in the book- never realizes all the positives that her daughter’s new outlook on life encompasses. Lucy spends most of her time with Jane devising new and inventive ways of ignoring her mother’s numerous phone calls, evading her visits, and eventually, trying to educate her mother as she has been so educated from Dion. Jane is set in her ways, and this is one mission that Lucy fails, which propels her back to her old ways for a time where she is angry and bitter.

Lucy resolves her conflict with God through the stories of the dying that she helps to transition to heaven. Her mission of easing others’ passing was chosen by God specifically to have her realize that in every life there is purpose, and in every death there is purpose. Lucy still has fits of temper borne of frustration and misunderstandings, but at the end of the story she is at lease a likeable person and each relationship she has is better for her bargain with God. She also learns at the end of the story that she has never needed to take the medicine against organ rejection. She isn’t too happy to learn that it was unnecessary all along, but in the end it means even more freedom for her and she is grateful for the ‘miracle kidney’ Dion and God have given her..

Dion the angel receives his promotion due to Lucy Miller. He is extremely appreciative and realizes just how close he came to a demotion from God- and not the promotion he now serves. He considers himself a lucky angel. Dion trains a new angel to do his old job, and gives this new angel the assignment of assisting Lucy. The new angel’s intrusion into Lucy’s life begins the second part of the story that is continued from this one. For now, Lucy is happy, and so is God; what else could we ask for?