Healing Miracles

I had been working full time for only a few months when I received a phone message from my two-year old son's daycare provider, Lori. There had been an accident and she was taking Seth to the doctor. Her message was a bit hysterical, but I remember feeling calm as I made arrangements for my colleague to cover my classes. I immediately drove to the doctor, arriving at the same time as Lori.  I grabbed Seth from the back seat of her car and ran in. His hand was wrapped in what had once been a clean white dish towel, now saturated with blood. I remember positioning him and his hand so that he wouldn't bleed all over me; I also remember thinking that was a strange impulse and wondered what it said about me.

While the doctor unwrapped his hand, I could hardly look. My stomach was turning and I was fighting back tears. Unwrapped, the doctor revealed that one third of Seth's pinky had been severed and was hanging only by a very small scrap of skin. Lori, in tears, told us that Seth and her son Jacob had been playing in the playhouse and that Jacob had shut the door on Seth's finger.  Seth, completely composed, corrected her: he announced, to Lori's obvious relief, that Jacob had been nowhere near the door. The wind, he said, had blown it shut.

As the doctor cleaned and stitched, I focused my attention elsewhere. I had always thought I would love being a doctor, but I knew at that moment I could never do it--at least not if the patient was my own child. Seth, on the other hand, was fully engaged, asking the doctor questions, giving him orders, and calming his mother.

Eleven stitches later, we left with instructions to prevent the loss of the finger. I drove him to father's work so Mitch could commiserate and comfort (mostly me), and then I took him home. We were at the time living with my grandmother who was in need of near constant care and so as soon as I got him comfortable, I raced upstairs to check on grandma.

When I got there, it was quiet...too quiet. The silence communicated concern and I knew immediately that something was wrong.  My first thought was laced with the fear she had wandered off, but I checked her dark bedroom anyway; it was empty. As I turned to leave, I heard a tiny whimper. I found her pinned face down on the floor between the wall and the side of her bed crying silently. I went to lift her, but she cried out in pain. It was then that I noticed her left leg was stuck between the mattress and the wooden frame. Speaking in a quiet, calming voice, I lifted the mattress in order to free her leg. I carefully helped her to the bed and saw with horror that her leg was badly misshapen. I don't know how long she had been there, but long enough to disfigure her leg.

Over the next few days, as I nursed two invalids back to health I was struck by the miraculousness of the physical body. Over the next few days, I watched in awe as two very different bodies--one very old and worn and the other very young and fresh--simultaneously healed themselves. The finger reattached, the leg straightened and strengthened, both were made whole. Modern medicine assisted the process, but I believe the body is so perfectly designed it can and often does perform miracles simply doing what it is designed to do.