by Amy Newmark
Father Chuck met us inside with a welcoming grin. He knew about my declining health and poor vision. “Not everyone who goes to Lourdes receives a miracle,” he said quietly.
I nodded and sighed deeply. “I know.”
“And some people receive a miracle later, after they have returned home.” He raised his eyebrows and smiled. “You just never know, but have faith and trust in God.”
“I will,” I said. “I do.”
Pat and I had no idea what to expect at Lourdes, but we both felt Mary’s presence there. When I was submerged in the icy spring water, I felt warm with Mary’s love. I felt like I was standing before her baring my soul when I asked her to bless me with tears. I figured I could live with my other Sjögren’s symptoms, but I couldn’t live without sight. I needed to see in order to continue writing. So, I humbly asked for tears.
When I got out of the water, I felt like Mary was telling me I had to change my attitude. I needed to think and act like her.
Changing my attitude wasn’t easy, but I tried very hard to be more like Mary. When I got home, I put statues of Mary in every room of my house so they would remind me to be more like her. Each day that I was successful, I felt my heart grow.
On November 1, there was a special mass to celebrate the feast of All Saints’ Day. Pat and I made plans to attend, but I woke up with a miserable cold and started to cry when I realized I was sick. Pat looked at me as if he had just seen a ghost.
“What is it?” I asked. Pat couldn’t speak.
“Tell me what’s wrong,” I begged.
“You have tears,” he stammered. “In all the years I’ve known you, over thirty-five years, I’ve never seen you cry with tears.” He wrapped his arms around me and he shed a few tears of his own, tears of joy.
~Barbara S. Canale
Silent Night No More
Faith and joy are the ascensive forces of song.
~Edmund Clarence Stedman
I stared at our antique player piano, too afraid to touch the keys. Those keys were now foreign, glaring back at me like eighty-eight black and white teeth, one scale away from taking a bite out of my calm. Three years before this moment I had been enduring ENT and gastroenterology visits, endoscopies and laryngoscopies, speech therapy, and a vague diagnosis of “muscle tension dysphonia” that forced me to walk away from the stage and the college classroom. After twenty-five years of performing and teaching, I was no longer able to sing. I thought my life was over.
Yet after reinventing my career with the use of the written word as my voice, I found myself taking a call from a producer for The Young Americans international performance company. She was assisting with The Magic of Christmas, a five-show run in Southern California, and informed me, “Our lead singer has laryngitis. She’s trying steam treatments right now but if Jessica can’t sing, can you go on for her tonight?” My first instinct was to run. All I could think of was my current Sunday morning attempts to sing from the church congregation, voice cracking frequently and throat sore for the rest of the day. Mondays found me without a voice at all. How could I get through a public performance?
More profoundly, beyond the physical performance, however, I took into account my continuing grief. Only a month earlier, I had a conversation with my husband about how heartbroken I’d been away from the stage these years, not able to share my heart with an audience. I told him, “Being onstage was a precious place for me. I felt beloved there. I don’t feel beloved anymore.” What if something went wrong and I had to spend even more years coping with my loss?
As I contemplated my answer, the lesson from those painful years hit me. It had taught me that when I want to run from what is scaring me, I should lean into the fear and embrace it. So I took a deep breath and said, “I’m available but can you send me the audio file to see if I can even handle it?” The “Ave Maria,” Schubert’s reverent interpretation of the enduring prayer to the blessed Virgin Mary, was a beast. There would be no faking my way through it.
Now faced with the piano and the alarming task of a simple warm-up, I tentatively depressed the first key, then another and another. Soon I was vocalizing, triad after triad, arpeggio after arpeggio, head voice connecting to mixed and mixed voice to chest until I felt ready. I opened my mouth to try the classical piece and what came forth was decent. It was certainly safer than a singer with laryngitis. I called Tara and told her I could do it if necessary, simultaneously praying for Jessica’s total healing before the show. At 2 p.m. I got a text: “You’re on.”
I drove to the theater, my pulse racing and my palms sweating. I got a brief walk-through and sound check, then went to my dressing room to get ready for an 8 p.m. show. The stage manager gave me a five-minute call, and I slowly walked to the stage right wing. One hundred and fifty choral voices were already onstage performing an excerpt from Handel’s breathtaking “Messiah.”
I appealed to the Holy Spirit to blow His breath in me, giving a clear voice to Schubert’s musical prayer. Then I walked on. What came forth surprised me. There was a clarity of tone and richness of resonance I had not been able to achieve in three years. I did it! At the close, however, I thought, “Whew, that was nerve-wracking. Now I can’t wait to hear Jessica in the next four shows,” having faith she would be in good voice the next day.
God had other plans.
Jessica texted me the next morning that, though she had regained her voice before going to bed the previous night, she couldn’t talk at all when she woke up. I received the same text the third day. So I went on again . . . and again . . . and again . . . and again. Five shows total. That glorious Sunday morning driving to the theater, I realized I had been experiencing a miracle. I had been so focused on evaluating my vocal performance and praying that Jessica heal that I hadn’t been focused on the gift I was receiving and giving to others with each performance. Many audience members knew of my vocal journey, of my inability to speak or sing for some time. I began to realize, as people approached, hugging me and crying after the show, that they craved a miracle as much as I did. There were overwhelming embraces, comments and tears as people told me they needed the prayer of the “Ave Maria” just as I sang it. I was blown away.
It dawned on me that God had orchestrated an event that I never could have imagined, even down to the song selection. I reflected that I had been praying the “Hail Mary” my whole life, first on my knees each night with my sisters as children, then many times in the rosary at my lowest. I couldn’t have been more intimately acquainted with it. I recalled that my beautiful daddy taught Latin in school, and I was graced to be speaking it in song. It had even been my final goodbye to my grandmother at her funeral years earlier. Oh, so many connections and gifts had rained upon me. Most of all, I realized this miracle was giving me the very gift I had so desired. I felt beloved again, and more than anyone, loved by my Beloved. He was letting me know he heard my prayers, heard my needs, heard my sorrows. He gave me a gift that will last me forever.
The following day my throat was sore and my voice hoarse again. I could barely speak. I had not done one thing to prepare for Christmas. Not one gift bought or wrapped. Not one Christmas card addressed or mailed. But none of that mattered. I had been given the gift of singing a tender prayer for my children, my husband, and hundreds more. I had been blessed to sing for so many who needed His presence, many of whom had lifted me up in my years of loss or who had suffered losses of their own. Most importantly, though I had unwittingly forgotten the meaning of Christmas in years past, I realized the wonder I had experienced is exactly what that sacred season has always been about. We are His beloved, and there are miracles all around us every moment of the season and beyond into the New Year. All we have to do is look for them.
~Cynthia McGonagle McGarity
Touched by an Angel
The Visitor
Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.
~Desmond Tutu
Since the day of the accident, everyon
e has asked me the same question: “Cheryl, how do you get out of bed every morning?” To tell you the truth, I don’t always know how. But sometimes, on my worst mornings, I think of my mysterious visitor.
She came to call three days after my two daughters’ combined funeral, as I was sitting in the brown leather chair at home in Wildwood, Missouri, staring into space.
People had been moving in and out of the house all day with flowers, food, love, and tears. My special stranger came to the door to give me a story of hope.
A week earlier, on August 15, 2013, my life and that of my family changed forever in 1.6 seconds. I know the exact time it took to rip our lives apart because I read it on the police report. It took 1.6 seconds for the convertible in which my daughters, Kathleen, seventeen, and Lauren, eighteen, were passengers, to veer off the road and go airborne before smashing into a neighbor’s back deck, blocks from home. My girls died instantly.
Hours before the accident they’d been at a friend’s wedding shower, laughing and eating frosted cupcakes, wearing party dresses. The day after, I went to the accident site with my husband, Sam, and our youngest daughter, Anna. We found long, lone strands of their hair—one golden and one chestnut—caught in the deck’s jagged wood. I took them home and saved them in a plastic bag.
I was no stranger to trauma, loss, and grief.
When I was six years old, my father went to a motel room and put a gun in his mouth and shot himself. When I was seventeen, my mother went to a motel room and overdosed on alcohol and sleeping pills. It took me years of therapy, prayer, and love of friends and family to heal, but I did. And I went on to build a beautiful, happy family of my own.
I often wondered, though, about the level of despair my parents must have felt in order to take their lives. Somewhere along the way, they must have lost hope. And now, I understood the feeling. Just how much pain can one human heart take? Surely, this time I was beyond my limit.
After the girls died, our doorbell rang non-stop with condolences from friends, acquaintances, and even strangers who’d read about the accident. Our home looked like a florist’s shop, packed wall-to-wall with carnations, daisies, and hydrangea arrangements. I let my Aunt Carol and mother-in-law, Marti, deal with it because I could barely lift a finger. Doing one load of laundry felt like running a marathon.
I didn’t want to bathe, I didn’t brush my teeth or hair, and I wore the same shorts and T-shirt for days. I didn’t put my contact lenses in — maybe I didn’t want to see too clearly the reality in front of me. And I couldn’t eat.
“It’s not that I’m not hungry,” I tried to explain, when friends urged me to eat at the funeral reception, “it’s that I can’t swallow.”
It was difficult for me to describe.
When the doorbell rang three days later, it was during a rare moment of quiet. I was slumped in my chair—surrounded by beautiful roses, staring at nothing. Our Lab, Maggie, barked and lunged for the door so I dragged myself off the chair to see who it was. Standing on our front porch was a tiny old lady, wrinkled and hunched over, with a cane in one hand and a basket of tea and cookies in the other. It was hot outside and she looked like she’d walked a long way.
“You don’t know me,” she said, “but I heard what happened . . .”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I said to her, as I nudged a rambunctious Maggie inside the house and shut the door, stepping out to the woman. “I’d invite you in, but I’m afraid the dog will jump on you and knock you down.”
“Oh, no, don’t you worry,” she said, with a sweet smile, putting her basket down. “I’ll only be a moment, then I’ll be on my way. I came for two reasons. First, I came to pray with you.”
“Oh,” I said, a little surprised, “Okay . . .”
The woman took my hands in hers and we closed our eyes and bowed our heads.
“Dear God,” she prayed out loud, “I pray for this family to have strength and not to be angry at You. And I pray that this family holds onto their faith.”
She opened her eyes and gave my hands a squeeze.
“And now, the second reason. I want to share a story of hope with you. Would that be all right?”
“Sure,” I nodded. I was a bit in a daze. She was still holding my hands and now looked deeply into my eyes.
“My first memory as a child was when I was five years old,” she began, “I was sitting outside on my Mama’s lap on a hot summer afternoon just like today, when my Daddy came outside from the house and shot my Mama in the side of the head.”
“What? No . . .”
“I was covered in blood. My Daddy picked me up, took me inside, and handed me over to my sister, who was eight years old. Then in front of us, he put the gun to his own head and shot himself. After that, my sister and I were separated into different foster homes . . .”
Her sad story prompted me to tell her about my own parents. Our eyes locked and in that moment, I knew she understood exactly how I felt that afternoon.
“I tell you my story,” she said, “because . . . I stand here in front of you today a survivor of tragedy. And I know that you will survive, too. But you must hold onto your hope. Don’t give up hope. Ever.”
She searched my eyes for a moment and then nodded, satisfied with what she saw there.
“You are going to get through this,” she repeated, with certainty. “And I hope to see you again one day to have a cup of tea with you.”
At that, the old lady hugged me and left.
“Thank you!” I called out to her, as she slowly disappeared down the street. I stood on the porch for a minute, astonished to have had such an intimate moment with a complete stranger, then went inside to tell Marti and Carol about it.
“That,” said my mother-in-law, “was an angel.”
I barely remember anything about those first few days or weeks after the girls died, it’s all a blur to me. I have no recollection of who else came over to the house that day, or that week. But I will always remember my visitor who brought tea and empathy, and a story.
On mornings when I wake up and feel I can’t face the day, I think of her. This stranger’s belief in me helps me get out of bed, and keeps me away from the despair-filled motel rooms of my family’s past.
Never give up hope, she said. Despite family tragedy, my dear visitor went on to become a smiling, sweet old granny.
I hope to do the same one day.
~Cheryl Bland Oliver with Natasha Stoynoff
When Hope Found Me at the Beach
Dogs are miracles with paws.
~Attributed to Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy
The clouds were as murky and gray as my thoughts. Brooding about life and deeply preoccupied, I collected some things and pointed my car toward the ocean. I trusted the beach to make everything clearer for me, and I wanted a dramatic, solitary view. On a dismal weekday like this I hoped to find everything I needed at the jetty at Fort Stevens.
I drove for miles without seeing a car before I finally pulled into the parking lot. I was the only person there. Note that I said the only “person.” I was, however, not alone. A ragged dog looked hopeful as I parked. Ears up, eyes searching, he looked expectant, wanting to recognize me.
Hoping.
A stiff, steady wind whipped the beach grass, and the rail thin dog hunched against the cold. There wasn’t enough meat on his bones to block the chill. He limped slowly toward me. I stepped out of my old Cadillac, and he picked up his pace to greet me. A battle waged in his soft brown eyes, a war between despair and optimism.
A battle was going on inside me, too. My drive had been full of murky thoughts and dark emotions. But I wasn’t going to share my darkness, and it looked like too many people had already snubbed this wayfarer—I reached out to the dog, and he came to me.
I looked closer; his feet were swollen and the insides of his thighs were chapped and pink from salt water and wind. His elbow was scraped and covered with fresh blood.
I walked toward the lookout, my destination, to wat
ch the waves break against the great rocks. He followed. There were three short flights of stairs. I took them slowly; he climbed beside me haltingly, limping.
I searched the horizon beyond the violent waves for answers. He stood quietly at my side. The harsh wind whipped the surf into froth. My long hair blew wraithlike; his fur tossed wildly.
I slowly descended the stairs, and he kept pace. I headed for the shelter of my car, and he followed, stopping only to sniff at a trashcan, but he found no food. I turned and saw him trying to eat the sharp-edged beach grass.
I looked at him and called out “Hope!”
It was my grandfather’s name.
The dog came. I opened my passenger door, pushed the seat forward, and invited him in. He hesitated, wagged his tail, and stepped in gingerly. Then he stepped back out. He kept looking around, like there was someone still expected, like my car was the wrong car.
But there was no other car.
He stepped in and out half a dozen times, each time staying longer. When a white-haired man walked by my car on the way to the lookout, Hope growled a warning. “Good protective dog, ma’am,” the retiree said.
“He’s not my dog,” I answered.
We chatted and he said coyotes lived in the park, and the fresh blood on Hope’s elbow would be like a magnet. I had to do something, so I invited Hope into the car, and shut the door. I rested my hand against the back of the passenger seat to keep it from flopping back and scaring him. The kindly man followed me in his truck. I made it about twenty feet before Hope decided to claw his way out of the car. I stopped and opened the door and he hopped out. But how could I leave him?
I couldn’t.
We coaxed Hope back into the car. More determined, I drove off and just let him claw the door. I opened the window, and drove faster. Hey, my car was old anyway. Hope relaxed enough to curl up on the floor and rest.
Going through Astoria, he sat up. He faced me, and I spoke gently. He studied me, and I rested my hand against the back of the passenger seat. Then he quietly lowered his chin into the crook of my elbow, sighed, and closed his eyes. In moments he was asleep.
