(2002)
i.
Believing in miracles requires faith. Faith in miracles, faith in faith.
The bible, taken on faith, is God’s word and the document of His work. Miracles are, for the faithful, not merely possible or even expected, but inevitable. Blood into wine. Eyesight to the blind. Conception and then ascension, beyond and back into the skies. Death into life, eternal life after we die. With faith all things are conceivable.
ii.
One becomes wary of miracles the same way—and for the same reasons—one disdains forced faith. After seeing a magician reveal his tricks, whether he’s wearing a black cape or a white collar, the spell can never again be unbroken.
One conditions oneself to put away childish, or unreasonable things: one learns not to pray for miracles, to neither count on nor believe them. It has less to do with forsaking faith in the possible and more to do with reconciling oneself with what’s not possible.
iii.
We found ourselves in need of a miracle. July, 2002: fourth time would not be the charm, we knew that going in.
The summer had started badly. When my father called Memorial Day and said he and my mother could not make the family picnic, I knew. She isn’t feeling well, he told me and I knew. It wasn’t the resigned tone of his voice, or the abruptness of his announcement (she had been doing so well…); it was a feeling, somewhere between my gut and my brain, that told me we had dodged too many bullets, had too many strikes called balls, gotten out of too many traffic tickets, as well as other clichés I hadn’t considered. I just knew, the way I hadn’t known in ’97 (none of us did) or in 2000 (none of us allowed ourselves) or in 2001 (I can only account for myself here). I knew.
Things had gotten worse in a hurry, because with cancer once things get really bad they stay bad. A little less than halfway through the summer we brought her in for what we suspected would be the final surgery. The big question this time was not whether they could save her, or what they would find, but if they could even do anything once they got in there. We never know until they get inside, we told ourselves, a shard of hope, a last fortress against fate.
The worst moments, of course, occur in the waiting room. It is unconscionable the way families are obliged to receive the news, good or bad, in front of each other: one negative diagnosis a public spectacle hardly tolerable for loved ones, much less strangers; a positive diagnosis a slap in the face of those anxious and suffering within earshot. In ’97 the news had been unexpected—and not good—but they caught it (They got it!), so the shock was mitigated by how much worse it could have been (She’s going to make it!). In 2000 it was the same scene, only more so. 2001 was disconcerting, a surprise (It’s back) coupled with an inconclusive report (We can’t get rid of it all). We absorbed this verdict in the crowded space where everyone else sits and waits, a nerve-wracking purgatory we pay to provide (and, if possible, avoid).
“I’m going to the chapel,” my father announced, and I followed him. “You don’t have to come with me,” he said, almost gently. It was the first time I’d seen him this close to defeat, the first time I’d noticed the thinnest red streaks on either side of his mouth—burst blood vessels from clenching his jaw so long and so hard. “No, I’ll go with you,” I said. It was the first time I’d ever voluntarily accompanied him to a place where you pray for things.
I sat while he kneeled. I put a hand on his shoulder and we each thought our own thoughts. And even here, in this poor approximation of the churches we’d always attended, even as matters of life and death were being decided all around me, that familiar voice could not keep quiet. That voice inherited as birthright by anyone born into a family of faith, the conscience inside and beneath the sense of right and wrong, somewhere between my gut and my memory, the voice that sustains itself by feeding on fear and fantasy: Maybe if you believed it would work. Maybe, I thought, looking at my old man, his eyes squeezed shut and his mouth mumbling words I didn’t need to hear. Maybe if we all believed nothing bad would ever happen and the troubles we cause could be more easily explained. Maybe if nothing bad ever happened we would not need to believe. Maybe if we didn’t believe we would never inculcate this formula that can make a human being, at his most frail and vulnerable, capable of entertaining thoughts like this.
In 2002 we sat in or near the same seats we’d sat so many times before, covered on all sides by people in similar boats, lost in magazines, conversations, fervent attempts to keep the worst fears in check. We were unflappable, for the most part: we’d been here too much and expected too little to put too much on the line. We were waiting to hear words like stable, sustained, and second opinion. We also had seen too much to count on anything half as good as we’d heard during our last visits, however awful some of those things actually were.
I saw them first. They didn’t see me. I had walked toward the lobby, pacing as the wait stacked one interminable minute on top of the next, each one infinitely more excruciating, offering an endless menu of possibilities and horrors. It’s interesting the way we’ll feel compelled to move in order to quiet our minds: sitting still makes us defenseless against an onslaught of unwelcome thoughts; pacing around provides distraction, however weak and fleeting. I saw the surgeon, accompanied by the oncologist, striding down the long hallway, coming toward us to tell us our fortune. I saw them and experienced a sensation, somewhere between my gut and my heart that I had not felt in so long. It was the feeling of Hope fulfilled: the presents under the tree, the last day of class, the first drive in a new car. They could not see me and I saw something I could not believe. They were laughing. I saw them laughing and in that instant I understood. It’s a miracle!
And I did not renounce my faithless ways. I did not make immediate bargains with dead people. I did not feel the warm glow of divine intervention. I did not see God’s face in the empty spaces above me. My reaction was at once more simple and profound than that. I thought, modestly, It’s a miracle.
I thought: They are laughing which is unbelievable which means it’s good news and that means something good happened and maybe Mom’s okay and therefore it’s a miracle and they are going to tell us everything is under control and they can’t believe it but this is the way it is and shouldn’t we be glad to hear such amazing news because this never happens but that’s why we never say we know until we know because we never know until we see with our own eyes and that’s the only way we know for sure…
And then I watched them transform into the people I had known all along. As they walked closer, still not looking up to see me I saw them slip back into character. I saw them assume the detached air of authority, exuding the aloof ambivalence that preempted accountability. I saw my mother’s life flash before my eyes and the sinking feeling of the ultimate betrayal. They were no longer laughing and I watched, somewhere between what my eyes saw and what my mind imagined, a future that held things I had not, until this second, allowed myself to entertain.
They approached and my father and sister stood on either side of me. Unsmiling, they delivered the grim news, their voices conveying the austere lack of identification they required in order to perform their roles as sometimes saviors.
*excerpted from a memoir entitled Please Talk About Me When I’m Gone.
