Re: For (and anyone else)

[Guest guest]

Thanks for that thoughtful essay, Judi!

I'll tell you where to go!

Mayo Clinic in Rochester

http://www.mayoclinic.org/rochester

s Hopkins Medicine

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org

[ ] For (and anyone else)

> I love words. Words have a fascination for me, in the way they are

> spelled, the way the sound, and in their derivation. I have found

> sometimes that I think I know what a word means, and after looking it

> up in a dictionary, I find that myoriginal definition may have been

> way off base.

>

> Today I was looking up a word, and happened to glance at the

> word " miracle. " Thinking it must be a mistake on my part, I looked

> more closely, and found that the WORD miracle derives from the Latin

> word " mirare " meaning " to smile! "

>

> I have seen some miracles in my lifetime. Perhaps the earliest one

> is the miracle of my growing into a healthy, somewhat intelligent

> adult despite the predictions of the doctor who delivered me. I was

> more than six weeks premature, the result of a fall my mother

> suffered from which she later developed toxemia. She was told that I

> had cerebral palsy, and probably should be put in an institution

> because my mind would never develop. She refused to believe that,

> and raised me as a firm believer in miracles. It would appear the

> doctor was mistaken on his prediction, as I graduated 2nd in my high

> school, and later went on to work in many aspects of business,

> including a technical writer for a large pharmaceutical company,

> traveling several times overseas.

>

> Mom taught me to see small miracles too, in the sparkle of dew on the

> grass, in the tiniest of details inside flowers, in the songs of

> birds, in the movements of clouds, in the vastness of the universe.

> Although her life was not a happy one for many reasons, she taught me

> to smile and see joy in my life. I learned to be happy with whatever

> I had, and to enjoy simple things. That has not changed.

>

> A later miracle was my own daughter. I was told I probably would not

> be able to conceive, both from my own physical shortcomings, and due

> to the fact that my husband had sustained an electrical charge in a

> lightning strike. A little over a year and a half after we were

> married, our daughter was born. She later experienced her own

> miracles with the birth of her son, and last year triplets in spite

> of having polycystic ovaries.

>

> With the knowledge of the derivation of the word " miracle, " I now

> look at miracles as times when God has smiled, rather like a loving

> parent smiles when giving a child an unexpected gift. And I plan to

> look at all the smiles in the world, and see just how many miracles

> there are out there that I may have missed before. Actually, I think

> an honest, joyful smile is a miracle in itself.

>

> Judi