What Does A Miracle Feel Like?

Recently I have been asking myself this question due to a recent family upset, or rebalancing, depending on which perspective I feel closet to in any given moment.  My brother David, who is only three years my senior, surprised us all with a stroke Jan 16 of this year.  This event has led our family on a journey filled with anguish and love, sadness and joy, disbelief, and belief.

For myself occurred exposure to meanings of life and death as deep as my soul would take me; to a truth in my being where discovery of what a miracle feels like graced my human existence, long enough for me to remember, and to share it with you.  This story shares details of its nature, and I am grateful for this opportunity to express my accounting of them.

Our mother, Bev, was woken early in the morning with a call no parent wants to receive.  The doctor said that David had suffered a massive stroke, and was currently hemorrhaging in the brain; that emergency surgery was necessary, that without it death was imminent, and even with it, death was probably, still imminent.  The choice was easy and yet not easy at all - surgery took place while we rushed to Victoria to spend our last moments with a son, a brother, a father - to say goodbye.

We were given no hope from the hands that managed David’s state of being.  We were told that the place in the brain where the stroke had occurred was rare, and that to live from it, and to recover in any capacity from it, was equally rare; that we would need a miracle.

I arrived at the Victoria Hospital in the evening and was promptly taken to the ICU Ward.  As I approached a long hallway, I saw our family gathered at the other end.  In an instant, that felt like a lifetime, I experienced what I imagined it would feel like to become an only child - and yet in the very next moments the depths of my soul held hope, and kept my humanness calm, holding me in a state of acceptance for David to be free to choose his direction, to decide whether life in this earthy form, was still to be his abode.

I was the last of my family to arrive; I shared a few moments with them to collect my emotions, before entering the Intensive Care Unit.  Some of you may be familiar with ICU, this was my first experience.  I brewed enough emotional strength to push through the large red swing doors that led me into the unknown. With each step forward David’s predicament became alarming to me as the expressions of similar fated patients, greeted me with anxiety and fear, spawning cool and empty air that became my breath as I tread past their rooms - and I was rippled with sensations of dwindled life force.

Though as I approached, panic dissipated in the atmosphere, and as I walked through the doorway into David’s room I was enveloped with warmth and serenity.  There was an expression of peace on David’s face that is impossible to explain and yet I experienced it to the very core of my being.  At that moment a nurse came into the room and said very loudly, DAVID, DAVID, YOUR SISTER LISA IS HERE, and he flash opened his eyes, his slumber with source interrupted.

In ICU every life support system you can think of is hooked up to the body, keeping the human vehicle alive in case spirit of the particular participant decides to visit its human shell, temporarily, or with permanence, that is until its next departure.  In addition to life support, David had a shunt that was drilled through the top of his head and into his brain to help relieve the build-up of pressure from the hemorrhaging.  The evening’s memories are imprinted deeply into my mind.

The next day, I sat with David for a while.  I sat close, spoke gently into his ear and gazed at his face, captured by presence. I felt full of love, and peace.  I felt complete; unconditional in the moments we shared.  And as I sat gazing, I saw his lips move ever so slightly, and to this I LAUGHED OUT LOUD and said I know you, you’re trying to blow me a kiss, and his lips moved again.  So I smiled, and I kissed him, and as we shared this exchange, the corners of his lips curled upwards - he smiled his first smile.

In those moments I was graced with a divine beauty of life, with the knowledge, and remembrance, that life itself is the miracle, in whatever form, all to give and receive equally within its own capacity; to be love.

February 29^th, David, a son, brother, father, friend; was released from the hospital and is making a full recovery. 

Often throughout this journey I have asked myself, is this single event of David living through this physical trauma a miracle?  Or, is this single event a product of a perpetual miraculous foundation, born of life source, that we each share, that shows itself in as many different ways as there are moments?

Again, I ask, what does a miracle feel like?  It feels like right now…like every breath we breathe…expanding into who we become.