A Mother's Day Anniversary

Mother's Day is incredibly special to me. Never mind that I really think we ought to be able to celebrate Mother's Day on each of our children's birthdays -- which would give me three of them. Hallmark hasn't chosen to pick up on that idea, so I'm doing Mother's Day on the second Sunday in May along with the rest of the mothers in the U.S. of A.

But this Mother's Day is special. You see, it is the 10th anniversary of Tim's miraculous healing...

The saga started on a hot day, July 28, 1995. Tim lost his memory. He was at camp in Montrose PA and had gone to see the nurse to use his inhaler. She reported that all of a sudden, he looked at her with a funny look in his eyes and said, "Where am I?" His memory for people, places and events had entirely disappeared. Including his grandmother and me.

What followed the next few months was an exercise in futility, frustration, fear, and faith.

We went to physician after physician, hospital after hospital, and had test after test. Tim's symptoms didn't fit into any experiential grid -- so we were dismissed. The first pediatric neurologist decided he was faking it because he didn't know who Michael Jordan of the Bulls was. Most of the other health professionals just shook their heads. Since nothing could be found with the MRI, MRAs and CAT scans, then nothing really must have been wrong.

But our church, our family, and our friends prayed. And prayed. And prayed.

Tim was functional -- in fact, amazingly enough he did very well. Most of his school subjects didn't require he remember people, places and events. Math he could do. He could ride a bike and swim. But he didn't remember how to take a shower, where his bedroom was, or what any foods were. "Do I like that?" he would often ask. (We tried fooling him with strawberries which he despises, but couldn't remember. "Everyone likes strawberries," I said. He didn't -- he HATED them. Still!)

We continued to pray.

We took him to the Mayo Clinic. After three days they decided he must have been sexually abused in some way.

We disagreed -- and continued to pray.

He also suffered from pikilothermia. Whenever his body temperature rose above 98, he would pass out. It happened in school, it happened at home. I carried a beeper so that I could race over to the middle school at any time. He couldn't exercise, and he couldn't participate in gym. If I had to travel, Torrey carried a beeper and had the car so she could leave the high school if necessary. Everyone was on the alert. Either Bob or I would go to all the field trips so we could be with him if needed.

We continued to pray.

And we also wondered if we should move to Alaska.

One Sunday we were in church. Kent Hughes was leading the congregation in the morning prayer, when Tim whispered to me: "Mommy, I remember something. I remember Jill's 14th birthday. We had donuts with candles in them."

It was Mother's Day, 1996. Tim's memory had returned as mysteriously as it had left. His pikilothermia disappeared within a couple of weeks. He was back to normal.

Folks ask if there were any residual effects from the memory loss. We can't answer that, as we don't know what Tim would have been like without it. Tim thinks -- and we agree -- that it has all brought us much closer to the Lord.

He graduates from Taylor University next Saturday with a double major in psychology and Spanish. He plans to live with some friends in Wheaton for a few months -- attend candidate school for Frontiers Mission Agency, raise support and then go for a 100 week apprenticeship as a missionary -- most likely in Northern Africa or the Middle East.

God has answered prayer abundantly.

And this morning I will sit in "our pew" where the miracle happened. It will be hard to contain the tears, just as it is every Mother's Day.

Wheaton College has published a devotional called Stones of Remembrance 2. Tim's story is chronicled on July 22.

But Tim's story is my Mother's Day gift every year.