At the risk of losing credibility with readers of this blog, I am going to share something marvellous that happened to me 7 years ago. It was and is—do I dare say the word?—a miracle, or perhaps a sign.
After more than three decades of aggressive multiple sclerosis that reduced me to triplegia (three limbs were paralyzed), I fully expected my next address would be a nursing home or worse. No longer did I have remissions so characteristic of early MS, only the reality of slow decline. My disease had moved from exacerbating/remitting in the earlier stages to secondary progressive, and then, end-stage multiple sclerosis with no remissions anymore. My brain is riddled with MS lesions!
One day in 2018, I sat in my electric wheelchair and went before the Blessed Sacrament at my parish. I prayed something I had often prayed throughout the years.
I prayed
Lord, I pray that if it be your will, raise me from this wheelchair and let me walk again, even with crutches a walker, or canes, even if only for a short time. Let me dance with my wife once more.
For more than 30 years, God's answer had always been No. This time, however, something changed. Over the next couple of weeks, long-lost functions began to awaken. I initially recovered the use of my right arm and hand. For the first time in over twenty years, I was able to hold a pen and write. My handwriting was exactly as it had been before the onset of MS.
One frosty winter morning I was sitting in my electric wheelchair at the kitchen table drinking my first cup of coffee. I saw my recently deceased mother-in-law’s walker in a corner near the table and suddenly felt prompted (not by words) but rather by a divine understanding that came not from across the room but across the ages: Stand up and walk with that walker. I hadn’t walked in years. My legs were atrophied from paralysis, but the prompting was so intense that I tried—and did it! Granted, my popsicle stick thin legs were shaking, but I grabbed the walker and took my first steps in years—five of them! Stunned, I did it again, then yelled to my sleeping wife to wake up and see what was happening. She came to the door of the bedroom wiping the sleep from her eyes. I took ten steps with the walker. She literally staggered back and began to cry. Ten steps became twenty, then thirty, and before long I was walking the length of our house.
My doctors were dumbfounded. Two neurologists did full physical exams, including a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of my brain. The lesions were still there. This should not have been happening! Doctors had no explanation. The walker was ditched for two canes, then one. One bitterly cold winter night, my wife and I were sitting in our living room. A log was burning in the fireplace. Music was playing on our stereo. I looked at her with such love; she has been at my side through decades of wide-eyed terrors brought on by my serious neurological disease. Her name is LaRee. She could have left me. She was still young when my disability journey began. She chose to stay for the sake of love. I played the last song that we danced to before the wheelchairs, hoists, and other contraptions for dealing with paralyzing disabilities: “Once, Twice, Three Times a Lady.” In the warm shadows of a flickering fire, we danced—an unexpected gift from God; something we didn’t think we would ever experience again.
It’s been 7 years and I’m still walking (I use a cane outside my house or for longer distances). Full function of my right arm and hand have been restored. I even ride a bike! My wheelchair sits in a spare room untouched, gathering dust.
Every life is worth protecting for the sake of love (both human and Divine). If I have to return to my wheelchair one day, I will still praise God. He gave me what I prayed for: I can walk, I can dance with my wife again.
Miracles still happen.
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