It is the season, if you follow the Christian calendar, that miracles are supposed have happened, are supposed to happen.
Virgin birth, holy night and peace on earth – these all are Christmas wishes and each would be a miracle.
Of course for anyone raised on a farm or who farms, most of whom take what they do and see for granted, they witness miracles every production season.
They plant seeds and a billion dollar crop emerges from the soil, fully developed and capable of feeding millions.
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They face drought and a well-timed rain turns disaster into a decent crop. Is that manna from heaven?
They see their heifers produce healthy calves that become a source of protein and clothing. It is a miracle of creation.
But there are other kinds of miracles, real life modern miracles.
I recently witnessed one.
In a small room in an Ottawa rehabilitation hospital, a young charismatic woman called Sarah performed a concert for a small group of hospital workers. It was a wonderful, emotional, skilled performance that had some in the audience weeping.
They had brought her back from the near dead.
Sarah is a rock and roll singer, a good one, who recorded a track on her band’s next CD in early August.
A week later, she was being rushed to the hospital in paralysis, a sudden victim of Guillian-Barré Syndrome that leaves patients with non-functioning muscles and vital organs at risk. For Sarah, it began with numbness in her toes that quickly spread through her body, stealing her ability to move, to speak, to smile.
Getting to hospital early and getting the correct care and drugs was key.
Her determination to return to what she had been – a rocker with a Janice Joplin voice and a dramatic stage presence – also was key.
In the early weeks, she was on life support. Friends were uncertain if she would live or die.
Slowly, she recovered, worked hard with physiotherapists to get her mobility back. “I didn’t know if I would ever be able to hold a mic again,” she says.
Nor was she sure she would ever be able to prance around the stage, holding an audience in her hand.
Then there was the voice.
She was a singer who couldn’t speak clearly. How could she ever return to singing growling songs like HopelessorWastelandfrom her first CD with the band Fused, an Ottawa award winner?
A speech pathologist worked with her, found her voice and gave her confidence to use it again.
So on this day, in a small hospital room with her healers waiting for the verdict, Sarah belted out an amazing set of songs, in full voice and beginning with her song “Alive”, an earlier song that now has become a tribute to her recovery.
Listening to Sarah that day – throaty, articulate and confident – was to witness a miracle. It was a miracle of modern medicine, dedicated health-care staff and Sarah’s determination to be who she once was.
Her band is changing its name from FusedtoWaking Sarahand for good reason.
To sit in that room, listening to Sarah waking, was to remember that miracles happen in Canada every day, amidst all the bad news.
Merry Christmas.
