Miracle of Miracles

So, no kidding, I witnessed a miracle this week and I promised God I'd write about it.  

I have been a tad fragile in the last couple of weeks.  And it means considerable weeping.  I am never good at finding things or keeping track of stuff.  It's just not my strong suit.  And a little deadly disease, disinfecting one's groceries and mail and newspapers, not hugging and not singing with the world's most wonderful choir, well...I'm doing an extra amount of looking for things.  It makes me testy.

A few evenings ago, we were just settling down to watch truly mindless TV in the early evening, when we got a call from dear friend Heather.  Her very big dog had just bitten her very old, little dog and there was a LOT of blood.  And it was the eye that had been bitten and maybe punctured and could Carolyn come over?  Well of course.  It took us forever to get ourselves all put together to leave the house to go into the big dangerous world.  Carolyn packed her doctor bag with whatever she thought she might need, we changed out of the jammie-like clothing we were wearing, located masks and gloves and clothing that could all be washed easily and off we went.  

I'm a decent assistant, although not as good as I used to be before my hands went to hell in a hand basket.  However, when we got there, Heather was holding the little dog like a baby and not only did the dog not fight Carolyn, Heather didn't so much as make a face when bloody awful things were happening.  Since we had left in a hurry, I didn't take my hearing aids out before I put on my mask.  Usually I do take them out.  They're teeny, tiny computers jockeying for space behind my ears already burdened with glasses, and now unruly hair clipped back away from my face, and adding the little loops from the mask is just trouble. But off I dashed off in the darkness, tucking the dogs into the front seat of the car in case this turned out to be a long night at Cornell.  

And when I got home, one of the hearing aids was gone.  We searched the car, the foyer, and the path from the house to the car. I called Heather and she went out in the darkness to search for a little brown thing in the dirt by her house.  Nothing.  Nowhere.   The next day we had monsoon rains and high winds all day.  I just resigned myself to not hearing for the rest of this year.  They cost thousands of dollars that are not covered by insurance and I'm not working for 3 or 4 months. I took the left one out to photograph for Heather and put it in its box.  I couldn't even wear it.  I only have moderate hearing loss so it wouldn't be so bad, right?  (You'll have to ask Carolyn about it because she's the one that is driven absolutely nuts when I can't understand anything she says the first time. Or the 2nd time. Sometimes the 3rd time.)

Yesterday we were gardening.  I wasn't feeling well, couldn't take my pain meds because of my gut acting up, and then I fell, tripping over the incredibly stupid rock walls we have around our garden beds.  They were built badly by NOT Carolyn who was going to rebuild them this summer after we got back from an epic vacation in June.  That was it.  I just lost it.  NOTE: I didn't fall on Zuza.  I wasn't carrying her and didn't drop her.  THAT tragedy was averted, which is handy because it's such a bad time to be institutionalized and I would have had to be sedated if that happened again.  After we were sure that nothing was broken on me, Carolyn went into the house for something and came back out looking at the palm of her hand.  "I found a hearing aid in the driveway," she said.  Unfreakingbelievable.  In the driveway.  Not squished.  Well, huh.

I took it from her and put it on.  Of course, it was dead.  "I'll, uh, go put in a new battery", I said, and left to do that.  I was already trying to figure out what to say to the audiologist.  "Gee, I don't know, it just stopped working." 

So, here comes the God part.  It was impossible that she even saw it on the driveway. It was impossible that we hadn't run it over or stepped on it.  It was impossible that one of the chickens didn't taste it.  It was REALLY impossible that it wasn't swept out to sea...okay, to pond...by the heavy rain.  I fetched a new battery.  And I prayed very, very earnestly.  

I don't really like talking about me and God a lot.  I have dealt with so many people who consider themselves serious God people and who are mostly serious judgmental, unkind, unloving people who believe that I am going straight to hell because my life partner is unacceptable in their god's eyes.  But Spirituality has always been important to me, a driving force since I was about 5 or 6 years old--no, really, I have witnesses--and it has always felt kind of private.  Maybe it was because I was raised Catholic in a small town in the Midwest.  We didn't do a lot of shouting out during services, weren't encouraged to read the Bible or have opinions about much of anything.  But since I'm like a Shih Tzu with separation anxiety, I liked the idea of never being alone, and a benevolent ally with magical powers seems like a good friend to have.  Then came Star Wars.  And Yoda.  (I love Star Wars, original trilogy, thank you).  And I'm watching Yoda explaining the Force to Luke, and I suddenly realize that the true essence of my belief system, of my capital letter "F" Faith is being summed up by a green puppet that sounds a cross between Grover and Cookie Monster.  That was humbling.



But I digress.



You guessed it.  The hearing aid worked.  I understand that it was a tiny miracle in a world that needs much, much bigger ones. But I made a promise that I would sing His (Her, Their) praises and tell everyone.  So here I am.  May you have ordinary miracles that brighten these bleak days.  



And May the Force Be With You.  💚