cellini's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On Miracles Lately I have been reflecting on the incident with the deer and Simon's sudden cure back in October. The word for it is probably 'miraculous' and I mean that in the literal sense. Here's a recap of the incident. At the time, there were 2 things that I wanted more than anything else in the world. One was to finally get a deer. I'd concentrated an enormous amount of mental energy towards this hope. The other was for Simon to be healed. He was almost completely paralyzed from the neck down due to 2 herniated discs. He spent a week at the vet's clinic and had X-rays which established his problem with certainty. They told me that the only real option was surgery, ASAP. That if I waited even a few more days, the pressure against the spinal cord would result in permanent nerve damage and mean that he was completely incurable. Surgery would cost thousands of dollars. I didn't have the money. All I could do was hope. So I took Simon home and nursed him. I carried him from room to room, took him outside and held him upright in order to 'go' and fed him literally every bite of food by hand. This went on for a couple of weeks with no improvement. But I could tell that Simon wanted to live. He didn't want to give up and die and so long as he was willing to continue like this, I was too. I gave him steroid pills every day in hope of reducing the swelling but nothing much was happening. Then one day Trish and the kids were out of town visiting family and I came home from work early to nurse Simon and then hunt for deer. After tending to him and the other 2 dogs, I set him carefully down on a dog bed in the kitchen and went out back with my rifle. I should mention here that Simon is scared to death of thunder and when he hears gunfire he reacts much the same way. I was sitting on the ground in ambush about 70 yards behind the house near the crest of a hill. Waiting for a deer. Now the most important thing is to stay hidden or you won't see any deer. I could see everything from about 60 yards away on out to 200 yards. But anything extremely close was not quite visible while I was sitting down. This is not generally a problem because the deer aren't likely to be that close in the first place. Anyway, I'd only been out there for a few minutes when something told me to stand up. I can't explain it. Not a voice exactly, but it was like something outside of myself compelling me to stand up. This is really the worst thing you can possibly do when hunting from a blind and not what I would ordinarily do. But I did it. I slowly stood up and immediately saw a large-bodied deer trot right in front of me at no more than a dozen yards distance. It stopped broadside and looked right at me. Carefully I took aim and squeezed the trigger. The deer dropped instantly. Like a sack of potatoes. I'd spined it just above the shoulder, completely paralyzing the deer and shutting it down instantly. My later autopsy/butchering confirmed this beyond any doubt. The bullet had gone through the spinal cord while also obliterating the upper lungs (which is quickly fatal). I was elated. Finally I'd managed to kill a deer quickly and humanely and I would be eating venison for dinner that night. First I needed to get a rope to drag the deer to a good spot for dressing and quartering. So I went into the house. The other 2 dogs were still flipping out a bit over the sound of the gunshot. I petted and comforted them and then walked into the kitchen to comfort Simon. Except that the big pillow in the middle of the room was empty. Simon was gone. Then I heard a tail thumping from the bathroom. Sure enough, there was Simon. This formerly paralyzed dog had somehow managed to scamper from the kitchen down the hallway and into the bathroom, where he prefers to hide from the sound of thunder. The gunshot. He must have stood up and bolted at the sound of the gunshot. The sequence of events suddenly dawned on me. In the split fraction of a second during which a bullet broke the sound barrier and traveled a dozen yards, one spinal column was shattered and another was essentially healed. One animal collapsed and another stood up. And in the same fraction of a second, my 2 most fervent prayers were simultaneously answered. The dead deer and the healed dog. I picked Simon up and carried him outside where I set him on his feet, holding him upright around the chest. Balancing him, I let go. Simon RAN. After something close to a month of paralysis he actually ran around in the driveway and in the yard. Crouched slightly to take a leak and then RAN back into the house, where he collapsed just inside the doorway. Totally exhausted. Right there and then I dropped to my knees on the ground, took off my hat and shouted my thanks to the great whatever that had wrought this miracle. Simon really DID get better. That was the start of a steady recovery which has resulted in his 100% cure. The dog that everyone told me to 'put down', the dog that a vet and a veterinary surgeon both said would need thousands of dollars of surgery to heal. Suddenly and miraculously cured. And the rest of the deer season went fabulously as well. We've had all the meat we could want and I've harvested deer after deer with relative ease after that day. Now here is the million dollar question: What was it that made me stand up in that blind? It was a totally irrational thing to do. With such an amazing pay out. A deer that was magically right there. And it even LOOKED STRAIGHT AT ME. It looked straight at me and held perfectly still while I carefully lined up the crosshairs at just the right point. Why did I stand up? Why did the deer stand still when it saw that I was right there? None of this makes any sense. It is all outside the ordinary nature of things. Both the hunter and the prey behaved in a manner that was contrary to our nature. With stunning results. And that is why I think this qualifies under the definition of 'miracle.' Finding your lost car keys is not a 'miracle.' That word gets abused a lot. What happened on that day was a real miracle. Ordinary rules of the natural world were momentarily suspended in order to affect the sudden cure of a diagnosed paralysis. And get us rather a lot of food at the same time. These last few days and nights I've thought a lot about what happened that day. What does it mean? Am I supposed to do anything differently now? What does this tell me about how the universe works? Does this sort of thing happen to everyone? I can see how some people would sort of bury this. It's amazing at the time but then you think about it less and less and other things occupy your mind and then maybe you go 10 years without it crossing your mind. Me, I'm the reflective sort and I have the diary archives to prove it. So I'm just a little confused. Did I have some kind of incredibly unique experience on the order of Saint Hubert's vision between a stag's antlers? Or does this kind of thing happen every day? It happened. It is a fact that this story literally happened to me quite recently. The reality of this is just as insistent and plain as the rising of the sun this morning. I just don't know what to do with it. - ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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