Our family visited LaSallette Shrine last night, as we do every Christmas holiday. The lights were magnificent! The live manger was awe-inspiring as the choir sang nearby. Memories of my infant daughter, Dinora, flooded my heart again.

We adopted Dinora from Guatemala at the age of 6 weeks, and I was so thrilled!!!  She came with a variety of diseases common in 3rd World countries, scabies, intestinal parasites and malnutrition, but we loved her and fed her as she blossomed into an adorable baby with big black eyes and shiny black hair.

At the age of six months, it became apparent Dinora wasn’t hearing.  She had not yet started to babble like other babies her age, but she also did not turn to her name, or look at the dog when she barked, or seem to notice the footsteps of me coming into her bedroom.  She would be lying there awake in her crib and I would tread noisily into her room. She would startle when she saw me as though she had not heard my heavy footsteps. The next day, she was sitting next to me on the floor while I was doing the dishes.  An accidentally dropped pan made a horrendous clang on the floor.  Dinora happily sat there playing, her back to the pan.  She did not startle.  She did not cry.  She did not hear it.

The rounds of the doctors and a brain stem evoked response test documented a hearing loss with no response up to 90 decibels, and a trial with hearing aids was suggested, although they would not be strong enough for her to hear normally.   Impressions were taken for her ear molds.

That evening, our family went for our visit to LaSallette.  The lights, the music, and the manger failed to inspire me, as I was feeling very sorry for myself.  I had a two-year-old son who was blind, and an infant daughter who was deaf.

Nearby, there was a statue of Our Lady of Lourdes surrounded by prayer water, candles and a large display of crutches and wheelchairs of people who had been miraculously healed by her.  My toddler son, Francis, ran to the lights, something he could see, and I helped him light one of the candles. As the only candles he had seen were on birthday cakes, he merrily sang “Happy Birthday Dear Jesus”. Dinora, sitting in the stroller, smiled as the glow from the candle flames brightly lit up her face, almost as though a halo.  I said a half-hearted, non-de-script prayer. 

The next morning, the dog barked and Dinora woke up!  I thought it was a coincidence until I started to walk into her room and she turned to smile at me. She had heard my footsteps!  I started talking to her and she smiled!  Only a day earlier she had been fitted with ear molds for hearing aids!  I excitedly called the doctor, who agreed to see her that day.  Her hearing was tested again and it was normal!  The doctor had no medical explanation, and said in his 29 years as an ear doctor he had never seen anything like it!  He smiled and told me it was a “Christmas miracle from Above”.  The visit the night before to the shrine came to mind.  A miracle HAD occurred, even though I did not ask for one.

Dinora is now a young adult and has had perfect hearing ever since that day! My life has been lived with a peaceful, generous heart because I know, without any doubt that God is with us.