In 1969, when I was ten years old, I suddenly became stricken with a mysterious sickness. First, my knees began to buckle under me, then they began to swell, and finally I couldn’t walk anymore. I was rushed to the hospital.
My parents got divorced the year before, and I had been inconsolable. As an only child, the divorce hit me particularly hard. Several medical practitioners suggested that my illness might have psychological underpinnings.

Both of my parents were also devastated by my mysterious illness. Although I was in my mother’s custody, my father asked if he could visit me regularly at the hospital, and she agreed. The divorce had been bitter, but my mother was so grateful for someone with whom to share her burden – both physical and emotional –that she allowed my father liberties she normally would never have acceded to.

They agreed that a united front was vital and set aside their differences for the sake of my recovery. They achieved an uneasy peace and formed a rapprochement of sorts. I was delighted to see them talking to one another civilly of the first time in months.

At the beginning of my illness, my parents took turns at my bedside. My mother would sit with me during the day and then immediately leave the moment my father arrived to take over the “night shift.” But after a few weeks, my mother began tarrying a bit after my father’s arrival and stopped rushing out the door the minute he made his entrance. Their “shifts” began to overlap, and they began to spend time discussing my case. When my mother conferred with new doctors, she asked my father to be present during the consultation. Once or twice, they even went downstairs to the hospital cafeteria to share a quick bite together. Things got so that when my mother burst into occasional tears – no longer able to restrain or hide her anxiety – my father draped a comforting arm around her.

After three months in the hospital, my case was dismissed, and I returned home in no better shape than before. Doctors told my parents they had not been able to determine the cause of my mysterious disorder and that I probably would never be able to walk again. Despite this grim prognosis, there was one ray of light in my bleak life: My parents had fallen in love with each other all over again and had decided to remarry! I was overcome with joy.

Six months after their remarriage, I was suddenly able to walk again. I am now thirty-eight years old and haven’t experienced any difficulty ever since, except for a slight ache in the knees every now and then. Doctors were never able to solve the mystery of the strange disorder that had befallen me, nor were they able to explain what caused my miraculous recovery. I, however, have always felt that the entire episode was God-ordained, its purpose clear. Had I not become seriously ill, my parents would never have gotten together again and remarried. My illness was the spark that reignited their love.

Comment:
Sometimes God uses physical illness to restore the heart’s ability to heal, as in the case of the young man and his parents in this true story. Surely this is an example of how God writes straight with crooked lines. We often moan and groan over what has befallen us until we realize it was all for the best; God was taking care of us all the time in His own, mysterious way; He was straightening out our lives in ways we could never have imagined.

Fr. Hugh Duffy