On Christmas Day, December 25, 2012, four scientists working at the Cold Spring Harbor Labs on Long Island announce a discovery that will change the course of humanity and pit science against theological beliefs that have existed since time began. The team of genetic scientists have located and defined a human gene that can accurately identify the length of a human life from their first day to when their last day will come about. Their 4 years of study of the gene offers no reasons for a person's demise except that they can predict with absolute certainty when an individual tested will meet their death. The evidence rocks the foundations of religions worldwide and shakes the faith of humankind which has believed that only God has the power to control such decisions. Nations around the globe take up the debate over who defines not the start, but the end of a human life. The debate will linger for years. But the discovery also shakes the lives of four test volunteers that had agreed to be subjects and donated their DNA. For each of the 4 subjects find out that they are scheduled to die exactly one year from the date of the announcement, December 25, 2013 will be the day that they die. The four, total strangers to each other, seemingly in perfect health and all from completely separate walks of life and circumstances, know only that they share the same date of death. The wave of human emotions that accompanies their terrible news at first overwhelms them as they go from disbelief and denial to resignation and resolution. They each take a different course as they prepare themselves by looking back on their lives and numbering the days they have left. What happens to them and how the human spirit can change so suddenly becomes the focus as each person moves forward towards their final day of our most precious possession, life. 1. Dan Brannigan, among the Nation's wealthiest men, philanthropist, community servant, devoted husband and father. His darkest secrets suddenly present him with a desperate need for contrition as unexpected immortality dawns on him. 2. Janet Bates, an ordinary housewife and mother comes to understand that grief can sometimes shutter as well as reopen a closed heart. And the love of others is sometimes the miracle of our lives spent. 3. Father Ted Hayslip R.C., tragically drawn towards a life of emotional seclusion, finds in his heart and soul an awakening that liberates his self imposed bondage and releases the shadows of his self doubts. 4. Sharona Watts, young, spirited, unlucky in life and seemingly unlucky in love turns away from self pity and embraces life in its purest form to find that nobility and faith in belief, can be life's biggest reward.
About the Author: John Michael Griffin lives on Long Island with his wife of 45 years and has been in the publishing business for most of his life as both a Publisher and columnist having migrated from print publishing to on line publishing and business intelligence more than a decade ago. He is the father to four married children and ten grandchildren. This is his first published work with three more novels in various stages of completion.