Path Perilous:My Search for God and the Miraculous

A Chapter Five Excerpt

“Before I could speak, veiled Mercy brushed Death aside–and marked me for the gauntlet to come.…

A nurse’s whisper, a mother’s faith, and a forgotten remedy—they saved me before I knew I was dying…

My infant body was just another battlefield—waged in surgery during the worst war in global history.”

A True Story from the Edge of the Abyss

At two years old, I lay beneath surgical lights in a sterile hospital room—my neck ulcerated, my body writhing. The doctors murmured beyond the glass partition where my mother watched, anxious, helpless except for prayers. An angelic nurse bent near to whisper in my ear and dab at my tears. At two years old, I was too young to understand the finality of death, but not too young to feel the ache of my mother’s physical absence.

The infection was winning. Penicillin had failed. Surgery was deemed too risky—any incision could spread the bacteria. As a last resort, one nurse asked, “Has anyone tried Hydrogen Peroxide?”

One doctor shrugged. “Give it a try.”

She swabbed the clear liquid onto my open wound. I felt a soft, ticklish fizz along my neck and glimpsed tiny bubbles in the cotton gauze she held. I wouldn’t remember that moment, but later the image surfaced—of sparkling fairies slipping back into the cosmos.

Was my mother’s belief … the magic?

Perhaps it was her silent but strong faith that stirred the nurse to speak—or perhaps grace had already arranged it. Either way, that humble act saved my life.

It whispered a promise: even in a room filled with scientific pride and institutional indifference, I had a guardian angel tending to me—doffing her royal robes to favor a simple, inexpensive remedy, surgeons had forgotten.

The frigid hand of Death had reached for me—but was thwarted, as though veiled Mercy brushed it aside. That was Round One. The Enemy would try again and again.

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From the memoir-in-progress, nearing publication:
Path Perilous: My Search for God and the Miraculous
—a spiritual epic for truth-seekers, contemplative mystics, and all who long for God.