Miracle in the Window

Illness is the night side of life, says Susan Sontag. Sheila O’Connor agrees, having been there.

It had been a long winter, cold and unforgiving. Now it was spring; still so cold and bleak, I had ceased to believe in spring. And then, I saw it: A tulip bloomed on my windowsill. It was a miracle, that bit of golden sunshine that pierced the gloom outside. Such a thing could never have happened, had it not been for those everyday wonders that bless us. It took the magic of earth and sun, air and water to bring it to life.

Until recently, I never noticed those sort of miracles. Then, on a day far darker than I believed possible, they were taken. I was confined to a hospital room that I didn’t leave for six months. My bones were losing calcium so rapidly that doctors feared they would crumble.

While I was undergoing tests, I came to know the patients who shared my hospital corridor. It was these people who taught me about miracles we can make happen because we want them so much.
Joanne had such high blood pressure, the doctors said she could never give birth. She ignored their predictions and determined to have a baby, which she delivered healthy and has mothered since. A miracle.

Mr Livingston was a brilliant lawyer, with his future before him. When cerebral palsy crippled him, it destroyed his hopes for a healthy life. He decided to undergo an experimental operation and take the chance that he could maintain his balance to walk once again. After the surgery was performed, his physician told him it was a failure.

Mr Livingston disagreed. Every day he hobbled down that corridor forcing his legs to hold him and his body to maintain balance. His determination not only carried him down that hall, it took him out of the hospital back to his chosen profession. Another miracle.

Michael’s blood was so thick with cholesterol, it refused to move through his veins. He came to this hospital every year to have his fat-filled blood exchanged for healthy serum. Each year, he brought materials to tat a rug he designed for the sisters who cared for him during the year. By the time his procedures were completed, he’d finished his rug and his new blood gave him life for another year.

Yes, that was a miracle for him. But it was one Michael didn’t notice. He was enchanted by a far greater miracle: the work of art he had finished. “I’ve never done one creative thing before this,” he said. “Yet, every year, I bring something I designed to life. It’s a miracle.”

At the end of six months, I decided to leave hospital. The medical staff there still hadn’t found the cause of my calcium loss. “You must not walk outside unprotected,” cautioned my doctor. “You risk spontaneous fractures that’ll never heal.”

“I can’t bear locking myself away from the world this way,” I replied. “I want to walk outside while I still can.”
When I left hospital, I weighed 25 kg (55 lb). My legs looked like matchsticks and no-one but me believed I would see morning, much less walk outside again. In the years since, I’ve never let a day go by without walking in that world.

My eyes drink the coppers and reds of autumn; winter’s snow thrills me each time it carpets the earth; summer is so lush, I can’t bear leaving it to go inside. And spring? Every spring is a rebirth for me. It promises hope for another year of discovery in a world I almost lost.

That tulip reminded me that my season of hope had arrived once more and I realised I’d never noticed the real wonder of it all. Tulips will always appear whenever spring arrives. I’ve welcomed more than 30 springs and thousands of flowers since I left that hospital, and my legs still carry me wherever I want to go.
Yes, a tulip appeared on my windowsill that grey April day, and it was a wonder to behold. I was so enchanted by it that I failed to recognise the real miracle: I was there to see it bloom.

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