The progress of a miracle, the power of prayer

As many Interim readers know, last spring Paul Jalsevac, son of Toronto pro-lifers Bonnie and Steve, was severely injured in a car accident the day before he was to go to New York to lobby for CLC at the UN. Many are calling his recovery miraculous. Bonnie and Steve talked with Interim contributor Karen Stiller, sharing some of what happened from the first phone call that sent them rushing to the airport to be with their son, to the first steps down the road to recovery: a place they are thankful to be.

Bonnie: I got the call. My first reaction was I was mad. We started praying with the family. I said to them, "Keep praying." They did nine rosaries that night as a family. And I went and got the family telephone book. Each person I spoke to, I said to call someone else. It went like wildfire. Meanwhile the kids at the college were doing the same thing.

One priest from the college, Fr. Mastroeni, stayed with Paul from the moment it happened. He slept on the floor in the hospital. We found out later that the doctor had told him Paul would not live the night.

Steve: I had been on a retreat that weekend, and was on my way home when Bonnie got the call. It had been an unusually inspiring retreat. There was nothing different about the retreat, but the Spirit of God moved me greatly. As soon as my son Luke came out of the house, crying, and told me what had happened, I realized what had been happening on the retreat. I was being prepared for this.

Bonnie: On the way to the airport at 7 that night I got very calm, an unnatural calm. I said to my son Luke, "The prayers have kicked in." I knew it was from people praying. I was now on the eagle's wings.

Steve: A lot of people carried us.

Bonnie: I was out on the gurney that first night and there were kids all over the place, praying. It was dark, and confusing. I don't remember a lot of it. Steve came to me at 2 a.m. and said, "I think it is over." Up to that point I had been praying, "Whatever your will is." But, then I got angry and said, "No!"

I became the mother bear. I gave him life and I'm going to pray for his life. I knew I was to beg because I was the mother. About 4 a.m. I went to the chapel. I was alone. Then the door burst open and in came a nurse praying out loud, for one half-hour she prayed out loud, "We love you Lord, we praise you Lord!" I felt like she was feeding me because I couldn't pray anymore. And it was beautiful. And at 4:45, Steve came in to tell me they had stopped the bleeding. I don't know who that nurse was, and I will never know. And she will never know what she did.

Steve: I attribute his recovery to prayer. It has to be. In fact, one of the specialists in the U.S. wanted Paul to be interviewed by the Washington Post for an article on the power of prayer. The doctors there encourage families to pray. Dr. Benoit kept his professional distance, but if you expressed that you were a praying person, he responded positively to that.

Bonnie: We received a very moving e-mail from a priest in Russia who heard about Paul and was praying for him. It read, "Soul of mine, with utter abandon lean on the love of the Father. The Son promises, I shall free him and glorify him. The Holy Spirit promises I shall satisfy him with a long life. Amen. Reach forward for your healing Paul. Do not be tempted to believe in the lies of Death." The priest who brought that e-mail in read it to Paul as if he could hear and understand every word. For me, personally, that prayer kept me going. The same priest who read that letter to Paul, next went into the next room and prayed for a half-hour over 17-year-old Jennifer Simpson.

Steve: There were surprising, unexpected graces. Jennifer was one of them. Many people turned to prayer to a degree they hadn't for a long time, maybe never. Many, not a few. Many people went to church that didn't normally go, just to pray for Paul.

Bonnie: There is obviously a plan for Jennifer. She is a handpicked rose. On Friday, during Paul's third surgery, kids from school arranged for a Mass in the hospital chapel. Jennifer's parents were there and the Mass was said for Jennifer and Paul. Her mother felt Jennifer would have wanted to be baptized. And the baptism was done during Paul's surgery. The doctors had thought Jennifer would be in a permanent coma. She was in a coma for seven weeks and is now back to school. It was very strange, two strange accidents and they both wind up in adjacent rooms.

Steve: I learned a lot about my son Paul. We learned a lot of things, a lot from his friends. I did not know my son. Paul is a typical 20-year-old. He loves dance music. We discovered his personality, dealing with him afterwards. The accident matured him tremendously. He was a happier person this summer than he was last summer, before the accident. He has an incredibly fine sense of humour, and he's tough.

Bonnie: He has a T-shirt that a friend gave him, "Some days you're the dog and somedays you're the hydrant." A friend walked in one day and looked at him and said, "I guess today you are the hydrant." Paul said, "Yes, that's what I was thinking too."

Steve: And, now he is walking on both legs without braces, which is quite extraordinary. Two different specialists told us that it would take at least 18 to 24 months from August to reach this point.

Also, our family doctor told us that people do not normally recover from those kinds of injuries. The doctors are amazed that he is recovering so rapidly. Everyone who treated him is amazed he is back at the college. They can't believe it. One man who was part of the initial team at the first hospital went to Paul's room at university to see for himself.

Bonnie: It took a long time for Paul to figure out what happened. He was struggling just to get better. We were trying to get him to see the spiritual side, but he was just sick, physically sick. He didn't know everything that had happened all those weeks. To actually go back and meet these people and have nurses and doctors cry over him. It changed him.

We used to ask the doctor every day, "What are we supposed to pray for today?" One little tube, whatever. We told him, "We want to help you in your healing work." He liked that. During one very serious surgery, they had to get Paul in there quickly because he was declining rapidly. Halfway through, the nurse came in and told us it was not going well. I remember what her wide eyes looked like. We all ran up to the chapel and started to pray and a mass was immediately said for Paul. The doctor came back later, perspiration all over his face, but we could see a little smile on his face. We knew it had gone well.

We said, "Thank you for what you did." He said, "Thank Him." And pointed to heaven.