Miracle

[Maura Santangelo]

Wonderful story, good luck on your walk until you do the camino

MAura
On Saturday, February 7, 2004, at 12:36 AM, Karen Willmus wrote:

> This is my first day on this list and have been soaking in the
> archives.  I
> thought you'd be interested in the first time I heard of the Camino:
>
> My first son, James, was born with a heart defect which should have
> killed
> him in the first few hours of life.  It had taken me six years and two
> surgeries to get pregnant, and 18 hours of full labor followed by a C-
> section to deliver him.  But when they took the baby from me to fly in
> the
> helicopter to the Minneapolis Children's hospital, I told God I
> accepted
> that the child was His and not mine, and that I would be OK with
> whatever
> He had planned for little James.   Minutes before surgery, James was
> baptised in the company of seven nurses and without going into more
> details, the heart surgeons at the hospital assisted in a miracle.
> James
> is now 9 years old and a perfectly healthy, precociously clever,
> growing
> boy.  (And I'm not just saying that because I'm his mother!)
>
> Anyway, a few days after surgery as I sat with James as he lay in the
> bed
> with as many as ten tubes stuck in him, I picked up a Smithsonian
> magazine
> to read.  In it was an article on Santiago and the Camino.  Well, I
> can't
> tell you exactly how, but I wasn't half way through the article before
> I
> knew, -- fully certain -- that some day James and I would be making
> that
> pilgrimage.  (And I'm not even Catholic and I've often scoffed at
> purgatory, indulgences and relics.)
>
> Oddly, the topic of Santiago and the Camino keeps returning to me, even
> though I've never sought it out until now in joining the list.  For
> instance, this Christmas in Florida, James was looking for shells on
> the
> beach and when he found one of those types of shells from the Camino,
> he
> exitedly showed it to me and told me that his teacher had told him it
> was "his" kind of shell.
>
> I'm not planning to take the pilgrimage any time soon.  James will
> need to
> grow up a little more, and I'd like it to be his idea to go.  But I
> believe
> with all my heart that someday he'll tell me he's going.  I only hope
> I'll
> be able to keep up with him.  Until then, I'm really enjoying reading
> about
> all of your experiences.
>
> Karen Willmus
> Minnesota
>