One night, many years ago, I entered a ward of a young man suffering from cancer in order to give him a painkiller.
He would have been around 25.
We listened to the same music.
His mother was across the chair hunched over, almost curled up and sniffed up.
It was summer.
Outside people were having fun and enjoying life.
Inside we were fighting to save the young man.
His oncology was clear.
"It's not just up to us, child. Now it's up to you and your faith. We will fight it together, but I don't know what will happen."
The young man was in pain and suffered every night.
And we tried to calm him down either with painkillers or with a word of comfort.
So that night when it came I was on shift.
I was talking to him about music, about concerts. We spent some time together (we had other patients and there were only two of us on shift) and that seemed to relieve him a bit.
In fact, that night we had our first disagreement.
I insisted that my favorite band was the best, he said his. What do you want?
Childish stuff. But of the things that make you forget the blackness inside you. In the end we both laughed and agreed that we were both right.
Not to mention, I let him stare at the ceiling and reminisce about his own moments and went to the next room.
It must have been 10 minutes when I heard a voice coming from the young man's room. I turn around and see his mother coming towards me with teary eyes.
She pulls me by the hand and puts me in her son's room.
I found him as I left him. Nailing the ceiling with his gaze, but soaked in sweat.
The mother thought her son had died since he was motionless.
"Tomorrow the CT scan will be clear," he tells me, staring intently at the ceiling.
After two days, the young man had a CT scan.
Everything was clear.
No signs of cancer or metastasis anymore.
Rationalists will say that it was an illusion of the young man and his thirst for life. He was saved by healing, not by divine intervention.
Cynics will say that it shook him.
Religious believers will say "Victim."
I will say this:
Each of us carries his own cross. And in that dark hour of his martyrdom he has the right to believe in a miracle.
He has the right to believe in general.
Because it's better to believe somewhere than nowhere.
So the young man's mother, after what happened, went uphill to Tinos on her knees because she believed that she owed this "humiliation" that others say to Panagia.
And can I tell you something? Who am I to judge this act?
Who am I to trivialize this faith?
Who am I to tamper with this energy?
Who am I to say what is right and wrong for everyone?
And can I tell you something? Who am I to judge this act?
Who am I to trivialize this faith?
Who am I to tamper with this energy?
Who am I to say what is right and wrong for everyone?
Who knows why everyone makes such moves?
What black does he carry inside him and what is the meaning of such a move for the one who makes it?
I only have respect for such people because they dare to declare their faith in something.
Oh, I forgot to tell you that the young man lives among us, healthy and I even think I saw him at the Iron Maiden concert recently.
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