A Healing I Cannot Explain

I want to be careful about how I tell this story, because I am not a person who exaggerates, and I am not a person who sees miracles everywhere. I taught mathematics for thirty-one years. I believe in evidence. I believe in being precise.

So let me be precise.

For eleven years, I had chronic pain in my lower back and left leg — the result of a herniated disc that had not responded well to surgery. I had seen six specialists. I had tried physiotherapy, injections, medication, acupuncture. The pain was managed, not resolved. On good days it was a background noise. On bad days it was the only thing I could think about.

I wore a Miraculous Medal. I had worn one since my confirmation at fourteen. I prayed. I did not expect the pain to go away. I had made a kind of peace with it.

In the spring of 2019, my parish organized a pilgrimage to Lourdes. I almost did not go. The journey seemed difficult, and I was not sure I had the energy. My daughter persuaded me. She said it would be good for me regardless of what happened spiritually. She was probably right.

We arrived on a Tuesday. On Wednesday morning, I went to the baths.

I will not describe the experience in detail, because it is private. I will say that I was immersed in the cold water, and that I prayed the prayer that is said there, and that I felt something — not dramatic, not overwhelming, but something. A kind of stillness. A sense of being held.

I came out of the water. I dressed. I walked back to the grotto.

The pain was gone.

Not reduced. Not better. Gone.

I stood at the grotto for a long time, not sure what to do with this information. I touched my back. I shifted my weight. I waited for the familiar ache to return. It did not.

I went to Mass that evening. I said nothing to anyone. I thought: perhaps it is the cold water, the walking, the distraction of travel. Perhaps it will return tomorrow.

It did not return tomorrow. It did not return the day after. It has not returned in the five years since.

I have told this story to my doctor, who reviewed my imaging and found no explanation. I have told it to my priest, who was moved but careful — he said the Church does not rush to call things miracles, and that I should hold the experience with gratitude and humility. I have told it to my daughter, who cried.

I do not call it a miracle. I do not know what to call it. I know what happened: I went to Lourdes with pain I had carried for eleven years, and I came home without it.

I still wear the Miraculous Medal. I wore it in the baths. I wear it now.

I do not know what it means. I know that I am grateful, and that gratitude requires an object — something to be grateful to. I am grateful to Mary. I am grateful to whatever moved in that cold water on a Wednesday morning in Lourdes.

I am a person who believes in evidence. This is my evidence.