I was sitting on a bench in the outdoor communal area of the hospital a few days ago, with a fresh coffee and caramel wafer to have for lunch, and I asked God if he wouldn't mind getting involved and restoring my cousin, who was inside, back to full health as he had run out of ways to win his battle. I felt a bit cheeky asking Him to be honest. Like I was trying to get a miracle on finance because my celestial bank account had only a few pennies in it. Was the ritual of saying one's prayers each night similar to making a monthly installment on an insurance policy which would pay out to the claimant a miracle equal to the amount paid in? I was sure I heard God say "Pffft!" from the clear skies above upon receiving my request for him to intervene free of charge. It could be his good deed for the day, I thought.
I'd tried conjuring a miracle a few years earlier, for my Dad who was in hospital ill with cancer. As I approached him sleeping in his hospital bed, doctors, nurses and family members all away, I thought I should at least take advantage of the solemnity of this fleeting moment and see if I could magic Dad's cancer away by summoning all my belief, which would surge through my body, flowing from my healing hands to the site of the disease. But each time I tried to find the strength to believe, an image of my mobile phone showing no battery came to mind. The farting and choking sound a rusty old banger makes when it can't start came to mind - Dr Bruce Banner in the film, The Avengers: Infinity War, attempting to transform into The Hulk, faced with a mortal threat bounding towards him, the latent rage within his unconscious refusing to come out to assist him came to mind.
But I have seen a miracle happen before, a real one. A miracle in the sense that an event took place which science said could not happen. And it took place in a hospital in an episode of Louis Theroux called 'The Edge of Life". It's on iPlayer so you can watch it, but be careful, it will be an incredibly difficult watch for some.
In the episode, we learn that the medical experts, including the patient's principal consultant, are unanimous in their evaluation that a young African American man, Langston, who had initially been admitted to the hospital suffering a drug induced seizure which had then led to a coma and had lasted for 12 days, would most likely never wake, and if he did, the best case scenario his family could hope for would be for him to remain in a permanent vegetative state for the rest of his life.
But for each time Langston's family had this bleak prognosis reiterated to them by the medical experts, they would politely dismiss what they been told; before returning their attentions back to enveloping their poorly son with love as he lay in his bed sleeping. Their insistence that their boy would awaken from his deep sleep and return to them as he once was had rendered their spirits assured and calm, without worry and without fear. For them it was simply a matter of time before Langston's miracle took place.
Louis spends some time with Langston's sister, browsing over old video clips and pictures to gain a fuller picture of her brother. Her certainty about Langston's inevitable recovery as resolute as ever. When asked by Louis whether she would expect Langston to think the same if their positions were reversed, she quipped defiantly.
"I'm only gonna die when my heart stops beating, says God. Not says a human being. As long as there's life in my body, allow me to fight".
As I watched on, aware of my privilege as a viewer having access to both the thoughts of Langston's family and the opinions of his doctors; seeing the strength of the love and affections this comatose man in his bed was being soothed by, but also knowing the cold brutal facts about this man's unfortunate predicament. With the objective data from the brain scans and corroborated expert opinions of his neurology team, the stark reality that was being painted for me caused me to feel a deep sorrow in my chest for Langston's family and their inability to accept the truth - that they would soon have to say goodbye to their boy. And the more they remained steadfast in their vision of a bright future for him, the more my heart sank.
Later on in the episode Louis receives a phone call that he should come to hospital immediately. Langston had awoken from his coma.
Although extremely weakened, having spent the last 37 days in an inactive state, Langston was now able to speak and could identify his family members, even quizzing his sister as to who the lanky bespectacled British man with a film crew in his room was. Langston's principal consultant, had also come to verify the good news. She asked Langston,
"Who's that?", pointing at Langston's sister, Ashley.
"It's my sister", Langston replied.
The consultant, visibly moved with a thankfulness which felt genuine, began welling up with happy tears. She told herself off for crying in front of her patient, but carried on enjoying the moment anyway.
Ashley, who was helping her brother eat a chocolate mousse seemed calm and relaxed. When Louis commented how unsurprised she seemed by her brother's miraculous awakening replied,
"I already told you what would happen. I'm grateful and thankful to God, but I knew he was going to be OK and I know he's going to get better.
"Do you think this was a miracle?", Louis enquired
"Yes", Langston interjected.
The three of them laughed
Speaking privately aside with the principal consultant later Louis wanted to find out what her thoughts were.
"Well that was a bit unexpected!", Louis gushed.
Equally flabbergasted by this fortuitous turn of events, the principal consultant struggled to explain Langston's unanticipated return to life.
"He didn't read the textbook. He's supposed to be in vegetative state, but he's not. He's waking up. And that's a miracle I guess.", she said
7 weeks later Louis returned to the hospital to see how Langston had been getting on and was bowled over to find Langston walking down the corridor towards him, completely unaided, wearing a smile which beamed nothing but gratitude. The nurses behind the reception desk who had cared for Langston were overjoyed for him, but also couldn't hide their shock at the man's rapid progress.
Still sat on the bench, my coffee untouched and caramel wafer partly nibbled, I was left with an strange sense that you can't just hope for a miracle, or believe that a miracle could happen. Because where there isn't complete certainty, there are fragments of doubt which grow if left to breed. Langston's sister demonstrated to me that people gain greater power to make miracles happen, to make events that seem impossible, possible, when they act devoid of all doubt, knowing that it will happen.
Langston got his miracle because his loved ones spoke to him as people who knew it was coming. His miracle was a certainty. It was a fact that had already been written. Whether the total conviction they had was granted by God, or was created by themselves as a result of believing that such a God which could make the impossible, possible, existed; who knows? And who cares? What was important was that each had drawn on a source of strength which had left the fibres of their being knowing things would turn out well. Every interaction and every utterance spoken to Langston confirmed how bright his future would soon be. Doubt and uncertainty was never allowed a moment in which it could enter. As he lay in bed, trapped within his own body, only messages that asserted his eventual release reached his ears and fed his spirit. Words which were delivered by voices that refused to pay any attention to the narrative of how things ought to turn out, according to what science or logic or history was insisting should happen. And I feel like it was this unadulterated source of certainty about Langston's ultimate victory which maximised his chances that his miracle would come.
In desperate times of crisis, when it seems like the only chance we have left to survive is for a miracle to occur, we first must accept that the miracle we wish WILL take place, and allow this feeling of absolute certainty to course through our veins, radiating out of every word and deed we carry out in order to serve it.
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