I Believe in Miracles

How can I say I don’t believe in miracles?

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The day after my mother and I visited my father’s grave in January, on the anniversary of his passing, I couldn’t move my body. It felt like a heavy, soft mound of tissue and blood and gentle bone. Unsurpassable grief. 37 years worth of suppressed brokenness, all being laid bare at once.

I felt completely out of control of

my body—how to stop the trembling?

my heart—how to stop the sobbing?

my life—how to carry on and go to work and to the grocery store and to pilates, once you’ve admitted to yourself the depth of the hurt?

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That night, I was still sobbing. What I was most devastated about was never having known his voice. I kept torturing myself with thoughts like, “If he were to call out for me now, how would I hear him? How would I know for sure it was his voice?”

When I confided the sadness to my mom, she said, “I’m so sorry honey. If it had been even a few years later, we might have had video or something of him. But nothing like that exists. Those days, no one had cameras on their phone.”

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I knew she was right. I’d always known she was right. That was why it hurt so much. It was why I’d spent my life trying to pretend I didn’t care.

The truth was irreversible, just like his death.

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The next morning, I received a message from his friend, who had seen via Instagram that mom and I had visited his grave.

Would you like to have his baseball glove, she wrote.

His pen and pencil set, she wrote.

I also have a cassette tape of him reciting a poem. I don’t know why I never thought of giving you these things, but they should be with you.

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Less than a week later, the package arrived. I pulled each item out, one at a time, like a child who has discovered a mysterious box of treasure, and must investigate each piece thoroughly, in search of important clues.

Poetry, written by his hand.

He was a writer.

Sketches, drawn with carelessness and skill, simultaneously.

He was an artist.

A recording of him singing a song he was writing.

He sang.

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He had recorded his voice, and his voice lived on, so that some day, when his daughter was ready, he could remind his sweet friend of the box of treasure she’d been saving for so long—who knows why we keep the things we keep?—

and when his daughter cried out to hear from him, he would find a way for her to hear his voice,

and to know for sure.

It was him.

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How can I say I don’t believe in miracles?