That Asks To Be Known
12 Oct
Her name is Miranda and she lives in Granada. She is six years old and will soon turn seven. And while there is so much about her that would be nice for you to know, there will be time later for all of that. For now, though, there is only one story that is screaming for your attention:
The medical doctors in the hospital where she is staying say that something is growing in her brain. That she has six to twelve months to live. That while the thing hasn’t spread to the rest of her body, the place where it grows is inoperable. There is nothing they can do.
Miranda’s mother is devastated. When her husband passed away, she was able to keep it together. Because she had a daughter to live for. A daughter to watch grow. A daughter who needed her. But watching her daughter bravely fight through rounds of sickness has been almost too much.
What will happen when her daughter is gone? Why would God put her and her family through so much pain? What is the point of continuing? And how – God, how – can she keep showing up for her daughter everyday. To smile. To love. To be present. To give her a gift of life that she isn’t sure is even a gift.
This is now. And while it pains me to write about this story as it exists today – about a mother’s pain and a daughter’s courage – I am filled with much more hope than pain. Because I’ve been told about the next part of the story. Which is as unbelievable as it is true.
The hospital where they are staying is called Hospital Real. It is in a beautiful part of Granada called Albayzin. In a few days a young man will move to an apartment across the street from the hospital. He will come from another part of the world – the part is irrelevant. And he will have had another name – the name irrelevant.
What is relevant, though, is that when he moves into the little apartment across the street from the hospital, he will bring with him another name. The name is Miguel. And Miguel is not as young as the body the young man occupies. Miguel is two hundred and ninety three years old. And he has come to Granada to heal. People. And the first person that Miguel will heal is Miranda.
Miguel calls himself a medical surgeon. But when I ask whether he plans to do surgery on anyone in the way that I understand surgery – incisions into a body – the answer that I get is no. When I ask what kind of surgery he is here to perform, the answer that I get is that it’s something with his hands. His touch.
I ask how Miguel will find Miranda, and I get an interesting response. He will find her through this story. The one that I am writing now – scribing really. I ask how that will happen, and the answer has apparently already been written before I scribe it now: Her mother is the one who will read this story.
She will take it first to her late husband’s parents, who will read it and tell her that she needs to take it to Miranda. She will then take it to Miranda who will read it and tell her that she wants to meet Miguel. Then she will contact me. And I will reach out to Miguel. Through the young man, who I know well.
Miguel will walk across the street to the hospital, and into room 291. There he will put his hands on Miranda’s forehead. Until she is healed. She will be the one who tells him when she is healed. Then they will see each other in the light. And thank the other for being of service. And Miguel will leave.
Upon leaving, he will look at Miranda’s hopeful mother, smile, and give her a hug. Then he will hold the hands of her late husband’s parents and listen to something important that they must say. Then he will walk out of the hospital and across the street to the apartment where he is staying in Granada.
Carrying with him a new understanding of who he is. Of who we are. And of what this symphony that we call life is all about. While Miranda opens herself to a new understanding of her own life. A recognition that she lives to honor something inside of her that’s very old, and that asks to be known.