Colette’s Prayer

A journal entry on fears, prayers and miracles from one of my dearest friends.

Colette Plum (second from left), along with her husband Jason Patent (far left), me, Rowena, my Uncle Mike Tobin and my Aunt Dorothea Tobin. During a “Prayer Porch Pilgrimage” we made to visit Mike and Dorothea in Chicago in April.

Colette Plum is one of my dearest friends. She has been at my side this entire cancer journey, often taking care of crucial tasks behind the scenes. One sign of her generosity and brilliance: she arranged for several of my wife Rowena’s closest female friends to send small, thoughtful gifts to Rowena during the time I was hospitalized in January. Those presents helped Rowena to stay present and positive.

Today, Colette shared another gift of sorts. She did so during our “Prayer Porch” ritual, the morning after I got good news about remaining cancer-free. Colette read a passage from her journal about fears, prayers and appreciation for miracles.

It speaks of mysterious, divine connections among her beloved brother Mark, who died of ALS 11 years ago, her deeply religious father, who passed away a few years ago, and my dear Aunt Dorothea, who co-founded the Prayer Porch after her 19-year-old son died in 2012.

I’m sharing Colette’s beautiful words below. I trust they will move you. They moved me to weep quiet, grateful tears.

***

Today were Ed’s first scans since the surgery. He is cancer free.

Last night, on the eve of the scans, I dreamt that Ed came to me in tears telling me the scans showed the cancer is back. I did not share this on Prayer Porch this morning, but instead prayed this was indeed just a dream, and if not, prayed for a miracle.

I prayed that any cancer that may have returned might have disappeared and Ed healed before any scans scared him and all of us, wrought tender and torturous tears and a renewed cycle of fears.

This was a dream and later today was a real world scan. A clean scan. It feels miraculous. Fear not. Ed is cancer free and likely has been since January. The tears of bereavement were in a dream, but I still feel the miracle of this healing.

I want to remember what it is like to sit with a miracle and be grateful for the gift of Divine Mercy enveloping our beloved Ed and all of us. So many prayers for miraculous healing have been hoisted up, thrust up, persistently offered up with open hands and open hearts, on bent knees, with bowed heads, with prostrate bodies, with hands and arms raised high, with eyes closed or eyes open with hope or with bewilderment, with fists clenched and brows furrowed, with sad and tired eyes and hurting hearts and weakened limbs.

So many such prayers have been uttered by so many and for so many throughout time and throughout the earth. Oh God, how many times have we said these prayers?! Yet at this moment in time we have a miracle and a celebration of life. So many have gathered and here You are in our midst.

***

I remember the disappointment I felt, we all felt, when Mark’s pilgrimage to Lourdes did not result in his healing from ALS. So much suffering followed before his death and I could not wrap my mind around this pilgrim’s suffering.

And yet.

In my depths I believe there must have been a miracle that occurred but I don’t know what it was, where the healing and gift were granted. Yet here I am now, a dozen years later since Mark’s passing, feeling a miracle after having prayed to so many intercessors and angels, Mark and Dad included.

Is Ed’s healing an extension of Mark’s pilgrimage to Lourdes? Seeds of faith planted, pledges of love made, hope cultivated, healing radiating out piercing space and time and dissolving accumulated grief?

A bottle of holy water from Lourdes, sent by Dorothea, accompanied us to Antioch. On the morning of surgery, in the chill darkness of pre-dawn, stars still bright throughout the vast sky above, we huddled in the driveway of the Airbnb before caravaning to the hospital.

I dipped my finger in that holy water and traced the shape of the cross on Ed’s forehead and uttered a semblance of the furtive and fertile prayers for blessings that I witnessed my Dad offer so many times to his wife and children, and to all those he encountered in his hospital ministry.

Thank you, Dad and Mark and all pilgrims for carrying our prayers forth and holy water back to us. Thank you our Lady of Lourdes for your intercession. Gentle Woman, Quiet Light, Morning Star so strong and bright, Gentle Mother, Peaceful Dove, Teacher of Wisdom, Bearer of Love. Thank you for your intercession for Ed’s healing and for giving us courage and strength and hope to lift up, always those in need of a miracle.

I am here to witness this one. What a blessing! Please help me to continue to believe in the power of merciful intercession to bring miracles across minds and miles and millennia even when I don’t have the presence or perspective to see when miracles are sown, manifest and take hold.