I Believe in Miracles.

Preamble

Although we had our ups and downs, my ex-husband and I were friends. He had multiple Sclerosis (MS)

This story is a long time coming, and I thought about having someone write a book about it for me.

But instead, I decided to share this story with all of you. Now, I think, is the right time. I don’t know how good of a writer I am, but here goes.

I am going to tell you the truth about what happened; nothing has been added to make the story more interesting.

HISTORY

My son lived with my ex, who is his father, in a two-bedroom apartment. Like I said, my ex had “Multiple Sclerosis”; I mean, he had it bad.

He would shake uncontrollably, have to wear an adult diaper, and he would fall — I don’t know how many times he fell — but amazingly, he never broke a bone in his body. It seemed like any little thing he had to do was a major event.

He was in a wheelchair because he couldn’t walk, and we never expected him to get out of it. I worked for an agency for a while, and I was an unskilled caregiver and took care of him.

EX HAD A GREAT ATTITUDE

Although my ex was in terrible shape, he had an amazing positive attitude. Also, he had such a will to live, he even opted to stay alive on a machine if he had to.

He was a fighter, and he even did extra things to get better, other than having an aid come over to help him do exercises and talk to him about his condition.

Although I imagine most people would pray for God to heal them, he was an agnostic, and he had no real belief in God.

MOVIE AND CAKE

I came over to my ex’s house every Sunday to watch YouTube videos on his TV set, and I baked us a cake.

Of course, because I have a sweet tooth, I didn’t need a reason to bake a cake, and I did it quite often, dropping the leftovers off at my ex and son’s apartment for them to finish it off.

I managed to convince my ex to watch “After Death Experiences,”, despite his religious views.

I really liked watching those videos, so I could learn more about heaven and be encouraged. I don’t watch them anymore because I think I have watched every single one of them, or close.

We would have some discussions about whether the people on YouTube were telling the truth or not.

My ex did admit most of them sounded like they were telling the truth, but he said we would probably never know the truth about it for sure.

I was hoping that I could convert him to Christianity, but it never happened.

He was a realist, and he found it hard to believe in something he couldn’t see, or touch. And his whole family was like that, except one of his sisters.

GOD

I have believed in God ever since I was a little girl, and now I am 70 years old.

The only time in my life I doubted Him, was when my 21-year-old son died of leukemia.

I would lie on the floor every night, and say, “Why? Why? Why did you let my son die?” I bet I was a basket case for ten years.

My ex went to the hospital at least every four months, I was used to it, and he always got better and went home.

I never really worried about it, although I did pray for him often.

He was a great friend, and confidant, and we shared the good times, and the bad times with each other, although I did harbor some resentments towards him from the past. After all, we were divorced for a reason.

And my 26-year-old son, who lived with him, was also confused about the whole religious thing.

My son had told me, “I’m not sure if there is a God, and if there is, how do we even know which God is the right one to believe in?” I told him, “How can you not believe in God when I took you to church when you were little, and you even witnessed a miracle?”

The miracle I am talking about is what happened after my son died. I was lying in bed crying about my son and the boyfriend who just broke up with me, and I was asking for God to help me.

CROSS OF LIGHT

I got up and saw a cross of light on the wall. It was there for 3 days, and my son, who was 4 years old at the time, was even afraid to sleep in that room.”

Later, we figured out it could have been that the sun was coming through the shades, and that could have been the reason for the cross of light, but now that I think about it, I wonder why other than the three days, it had never happened before or since that incident.

We had the same shades.

At least a year after that conversation, I was still coming to visit my ex quite a bit (we lived in the same apartment complex), but one day, he told me he was getting worse, and worse, and he knew he was going to die soon.

He said he’d been thinking about his mortality; he’s been thinking about God.

He said he keeps asking God to help him believe, but nothing happens. A week later, he was in the hospital, and I went to visit him.

He told me it’s a “miracle,” and that every nurse that came in his room was crying. I was thinking at the time, “What’s a miracle?” because other than the nurses, nothing happened differently that I knew about.

But it was strange that the nurses were crying. He also told me a priest came in and they were praying together, and the priest said, “This has never happened before.

You prayed for everyone but yourself.” He said he explained to the priest that he forgets things a lot because of his MS. And the priest said, “No, you didn’t.” Then I was going to wait a couple days until I was going to visit him again.

MESSAGES

I don’t always remember to get my messages on my landline phone, so I didn’t get them until midnight.

I always stayed up late because I enjoyed it, and I was retired. The first message from my ex said “Call me right away. It’s an emergency!”

Then the next message I got from him was “You won’t believe this. I am walking, running and dancing with the nurses”

He was such a flirt, I knew if he was walking, he would defiantly be dancing with the nurses. I called him but it was too late for me to visit, although I was asking him if there was some way I could sneak into the hospital.

FACEBOOK

I told my son on instant message on Facebook what his father had told me. My son said “He is not running, walking, and dancing, that’s ridiculous.”

I told my son, “I know your father tell lies a lot for jokes, but he wouldn’t lie about his.” My son replied, “You don’t know HIM.”

HOSPITAL VISIT

The next day, I went to the hospital to visit my ex. Sure enough he was able to walk, but he was not able to run. My ex-loves to exaggerate. My ex said, “It’s a miracle!’

He told me how he realized he could walk. He said he was telling his girlfriend about the book I dropped off for him to read, that was from the 700 club that talked about all the different religions.

He said he was getting frustrated about her because she couldn’t find the book. So, he got up to show her where the book was, and then when he got to the other side of the room, he realized he was walking,

but he wasn’t supposed to walk.

SPREAD THE NEWS

Then he told me “Go in the hallway and tell someone what happened.” I replied to him “It doesn’t make sense, I heard everything second hand. They were there to see it.”

He told me, “Ok, if you don’t want to do what God wants you to do.” In my mind, I was thinking, “How in the hell does my ex-husband know what God wants me to do.” After, my ex says, “Don’t go.”

Then a scripture comes to mind from the bible “If you are ashamed of me on earth, then I will be ashamed of you in heaven.”

So, I said “I’ll go, but I don’t know what to say, or who to say it to.” Then my ex said, “Say it to anyone.” And he continued, “Don’t go,” again. I said, “I’m going, I’m going.”

Then he must have said “Don’t go” at least 7 times which I thought was strange.

So, I went out in the hallway, but the only person I saw was the cleaning lady, and I told her about the miracle, and she replied, “Well, MS can get better or worse at any time.’

Although to an extent that is true, it is a very rare occasion for someone who has his type of MS, who was practically on his death-bed, to have such a turn around, and to get up and walk after being in a wheelchair for six years, and to have his condition good enough to go to his home instead of the nursing home.

DANCING

Later, my ex told me that when he walked, he was dancing with the nurses. He wasn’t doing a fast dance, just twirling them around slowly.

He said, “Two of the nurses went home because they were crying so much.” He continued, “Then when they came back the next day, one of the nurses told me the reason she went home was because she was allergic to cats. My ex said, “There are no cats in here.” with a little chuckle. And he told me another nurse also went home and gave him a flimsy excuse. I forgot the excuse.

He also told me that he doesn’t let all the patients see him walking. He said there were patients there who were seriously ill. If they saw him walking, they could have a heart attack.

HELPING PATIENTS

He told me he had been visiting the other patients in his wheelchair, and he said he was helping this one man eat and feeding him with a spoon when his wife and everybody else that tried couldn’t get him to eat.

He also said, he was talking to a guy who was in the hospital about his former alcohol addiction because the guy had an alcohol problem, and he was trying to help him.

My ex always had a soft heart, and he wanted to help people. Sometimes I wish that I had the biggest heart like he did.

Plus, he wasn’t shy at all. He was an extravert, and he never met a stranger. I would have been too shy to do what he did.

Then, after a long visit, I went home.

THE PHONE CALL

That evening, my ex called me, and he was asking me if this and that was in the bible, and I said “yes” repeatedly.

It seemed like he told me things that I deemed unimportant; like” Mary wept” and “They washed Jesus’s feet.” My ex said these messages kept popping into his head, and he didn’t know where they came from.

Next, he said that he thinks these messages are coming from God. Finally, he found enough nerve to tell me that God was talking to him on a regular basis. He said he doesn’t hear God audibly; he hears it through his heart.

He said first he gets this loving feeling, and then God speaks to him. He said God told him Jesus was on the cross, and there were two people on each side of him.

He said he didn’t know if they were thieves or murderers, but one of them went to heaven. This was the first time I realized that my ex didn’t even know about the story of Jesus dying on the cross.

If I had known that; I would have told him. He said he was going to keep all this to himself, but he thought it was too big for him to keep it a secret, and because I was the most religious person he knew, he decided to tell me.

QUESTIONS

Then, being a believer myself, the first thing that came to my mind was to ask God if I was going to heaven, or at least if I was on the right track.

My ex replied, “God said he can’t tell you that because there is always free will.”

I don’t remember what else he told me God said, but I was writing everything my ex told me on an envelope, and I had to turn it every which way to write the information down.

My ex wanted me to write it down because the MS had really damaged his memory, and he said he wanted me to bring the information to the hospital the next day so I could tell him what he said.

BANANA

The next day, when I was on my way to the hospital, I was going to stop at the “Family Express” for cigarettes.

I know it seems silly, but I asked God in my head, that if this “God thing” is real, have the lady in the gas station give me a free banana. The gas station regularly gave kids free bananas if their parents bought something.

So, when I went to pay for my cigarettes, I asked the cashier if I could have a free banana. She said, “No.” Then I said, “Can I have one for my grandson?” and she said “no,” again, “we don’t give away free bananas anymore.

Not even for children.” So, I paid for my cigarettes, and I was by the door, ready to walk out, thinking, “Well, that didn’t happen.” Then the cashier yelled to me, “I can give you a free banana if you’re hungry.”

So, I got my free banana. I was surprised she didn’t say before that “you could have bought a banana if you didn’t buy cigarettes, which are unnecessary.”

FEET

So, “I’m encouraged,” lol. Then I went to the hospital again to visit my ex, and he asked me to read him the notes I had written on what he said the night before.

I had thought I wrote down lots of things, but I only found a few things to tell him, but I remembered to tell him that he said four nurses wanted to wash his feet.

Disappointed, he said, “Don’t you have anything better to tell me than about feet?” He said nurses always wash people’s feet. But later I asked my nurse friend and she said that wasn’t true.

I wrote this whole story down, but now I am just writing this off the top of my head.

THE GOOD NEWS

I went home for a couple days, and when I went back to visit my ex, he was standing up with a smile on his face.

He said, “You’ve got it made! I asked God again if you were going to heaven, and he said you are in the lamb book, and your children are anxiously waiting for you in heaven (I had lost two children).

God told me that the night I told you I was talking to God, you stayed up all night worrying about going to hell, and God said he doesn’t want you to worry about that anymore.

And neither do your children. Then I asked my ex What is the lamb book?” (I had never heard that term before), Is it the book of life, and my ex said.

“No.” (he didn’t know about the book of life), and he said, “Look it up.” So, I went home and looked it up on the internet. The Lamb book is the Lamb’s Book of Life.

It was in only one place in the bible, and I had never heard anything about that in the past.

That night, when I prayed to God, instead of praying while sitting in my chair, I got on the floor on my knees and with my head down, I prayed.

CHANGE OF MIND

When I came to visit my ex again, I was there when someone called him. He talked briefly and made up and excuse to hang up. When he put the phone down, he was angry.

He told me his brother called him and he was making fun of the whole situation. My ex said his brother asked him, “Did you take anymore walking pills?”

My ex was very angry about this, but then he turned around and said that he shouldn’t blame his brother because he would probably say the same thing if the tables were turned.

But unfortunately, his brother eventually convinced him that it was not all God, but also gave credit to the doctors in the hospital and his hard work.

His girlfriend and I both agreed that that kind of thinking was not a good idea, but he didn’t listen to us.

SON

One of many of the times I visited my ex, our son came in to visit him. By then, we had already told him the whole story before, but he didn’t believe any of it.

He thought his father was making all of it up because his father had a reputation for being a jokester, kind of like the boy who called wolf.

When he wasn’t lying and was telling the truth, nobody would believe him.

My ex was frustrated with our son, and he opened up the bible I gave him, and he turned the pages saying, “Maybe this is the page that would fool your mother, no, this is the page to fool your mother, no, this is the page to fool your mother.”

Then, like with his brother, my ex’s heart softened, and he said he really can’t blame our son because he probably wouldn’t believe it either if he was in his shoes.

VISION

A couple days after, I again was at the hospital and my ex said he was talking to his girlfriend, and he didn’t know why, but he suddenly blew in his girlfriend’s face, and her hair blew-back and she looked like a beautiful young woman, and she had a white and blue aura around her.

He said it only lasted a few minutes and then it was gone. He said during the episode, his girlfriend was looking at him like she was confused.

ALCOHOL AND CIGARETTES

Another time, when I went to the twilight zone, (the hospital), my ex was upset about his girlfriend.

She was the only other person that knew about what happened, other than our son, and it seemed like she believed every bit of it.

But evidently when my ex talked to her on the phone, she said, “You probably aren’t talking to God. You probably just have a brain tumor.”

He said he threw a fork at the window, got in his wheelchair, and he was going to go in the elevator and go out of the hospital and get a drink and a cigarette.

(He had been dry for years, and just recently stopped smoking). He said the security guards couldn’t stop him, so they called the police, and they told him if he didn’t go back in his room, they were going to arrest him. lol.

MILKSHAKE

To change the subject, one other eventful day when he was in the hospital, his “Ensure” that he was drinking was not made correctly.

The back story to that is that he wasn’t allowed to eat anything, permanently, and the only thing he could drink was “Ensure”, but he had to put a certain amount of thickener in it, or it wouldn’t be safe for him to drink.

So, like I said, they didn’t make his ensure properly, so he got in his wheel chair again, only this time he was going to the kitchen, to explain to them how much of this thicker they were supposed to put in his drink.

Then the hospital called the police again, and my ex was told that if he didn’t go back to him room, he would be arrested, only this time, he was put in hand-cuffs. Lol.

I guess they may have been afraid he was going to hurt the kitchen help. Then the patients were making fun of him, and they said he threw a fit because his milkshake wasn’t made correctly.

(TO BE CONTINUED)