God or Not Carnival #3: Miracles.

It took me a while to figure out what to write. I thought about TV shows that depicted cases where a stranger or some ghostly or angelic being appears from nowhere and saves people who are injured. There are a lot of those. I finally decided to ask permission to tell this story. It is, to me, absolute proof that miracles do happen. We have rarely spoken of this in my family, but this is what happened.

When I was in my early 20’s, my mother was diagnosed with cancer. She had a mass in her throat. She went to a specialist, who confirmed its existence with a biopsy. She got a second opinion, which agreed with the original diagnosis. It was there, and it had to come out.

As you can imagine, she was scared. Surgery was scheduled, arrangements were made for her brother and sister to come see her while she was recovering, just in case. She was depressed the night before the surgery, and as she tried to go to sleep, she prayed that whatever happened, she would “hit the ground running” -- that no matter what happened, she would have the strength to handle it.

Later in the night, she awoke to see a dark hand above her. The fingers looked as if they were holding something unseen, and the hand was ascending from her as if it were lifting something out of her. She was overcome with a joyous sense of relief. She woke up my dad, and told him “it’s going to be OK. I know that now.”

They went to the hospital as planned, and mom went in for her surgery. She was in a short time and quickly returned to a recovery room. The doctors had been unable to find any kind of mass. Her doctor was beside himself. He swore that they had confirmed and reaffirmed its presence, that he never would have subjected her to being operated on if they hadn’t been sure. My mom told him not to worry, she knew why they didn’t find anything - she had a friend. Her doctor replied that she must know something he didn’t, that she owed her friend one, because “He” had saved her life.

That was over twenty years ago. My mom is still with us, in spite of some very rough medical problems, and there has never been a recurrence of that mass in her throat or anywhere else. She has seen her “hand” at least once since then, so she’s sure her friend is still with her. We don’t just believe in miracles here. We live with them.