A Life Examined | My Greatest Gift From God

In which Teófilo updates his readers about his Mercie.

In her I met a genuinely happy woman, a woman who was...Well, her qualities were outstanding, of course. Dignity and self-respect, and no egoism. Maybe she had the kind of thing you people call wisdom. But mainly it was the love in her, which she gave to everyone, to anyone. A person like that is the way she is because she is loved totally and beautifully by somone—someone in whom she has absolute confidence.

~ Michael D. O'Brien, Elijah in Jerusalem

A recent picture of my Mercie during one of her medical forays. (Author’s photo).

Mercie in my life

My life journey wouldn't have turned out the way it has without my Mercie. I' remain convinced God willed our encounter that morning on our school's yard in 1980. Meeting her was the pivotal moment in my life. The love I'd been looking for all my life until then I found in her.

Mercie ran our home with love, understanding, and discipline. She waited for me during my globetrotting days. She mothered our children with love, passion, understanding, and generosity. In the beginning of the 2000's she continued to be the bright sun in our home. Yet, dark clouds began to cluster in our skies when Mercie's health entered into a time of decline.

A Painful Loss

First, a miscarriage. It was a bittersweet moment—we didn’t even know she was pregnant until we lost the baby. We first felt joy and then inconsolable sorrow for the loss. We named our baby—I'll keep the name a secret know but to us. We'll see the baby in the Kingdom, from where he or she pray for us before God until we meet.

The miscarriage also foreclosed any possibility for us becoming parents again.

An Encounter with Mr. Chiari's Malformation

Around the same time, Mercie started showing symptoms from several conditions we had to treat. These conditions required surgery. We suspected these conditions were masking a bigger, more serious one. This condition had a name: Arnold Chiari Malformation Syndrome.

Her Chiari had been a silent, inherited condition—until a car crash in the Giant Eagle parking lot on Eisenhower Road in Johnstown set it off. It happened when an older lady, ignoring a stop sign, drove her bulky, older car against mine. The car spun once and Mercie suffered a whiplash. Her Chiari then came alive.

She went through the full range of Chiari symptoms—headaches, trouble swallowing, vomiting, dizziness, neck pain, unsteady walking, poor hand coordination, numbness and tingling in her hands and feet, and speech issues. Her body lost the ability to regulate its temperature. She suffered from unexplainable fevers and also from bouts of narcolepsy.

Surgery was the answer. The surgeon did a “decompression” by widening the hole at the base of her skull to ease pressure on her brain. The surgery happened in early November 2008 at UPMC Presbyterian Hospital in Pittsburgh. Her condition has no cure, but we expected that decompression surgery would alleviate her symptoms—and it did. Most of her symptoms disappeared right away. She recovered very fast and was able to run around and help at the birth of our second grandson in December, 2008.

Mercie's Chiari Post-Surgical Healing Sequence, Nov.-Dec. 2008

I credit not only the knowledge and expertise of her surgeons, but most our Good Lord from whom all good comes from. A lot of people prayed for a successful surgery and recovery. I myself thanked the Lord for having returned her to me once more.

The surgery worked so well that even after another head-on crash in 2017, this time in Virginia—caused by yet another careless driver blowing a stop sign—her Chiari didn’t get worse. This accident did cause her other extensive bruising and lacerations wherever the seatbelt held her back. Once again, the Lord gave her back to me. Our vehicle, however, was a total loss.

Mercie inspects our totaled vehicle, 2017. (Author’s Collection).

The Big "C"

In fall 2020, during the cusp of the COVID outbreak, we got the worst news—my Mercie had breast cancer. The clinicians found it at its earliest stage during a routine mammogram. Despite the bright prognosis, I was devastated. "What else, Lord?"—I cried in prayer. "Please, return her to me like you've done all those times before.

My depression—more on that later— took a dive. Then, for the first time in my life, my blood sugar shot up into diabetic territory. I cried dreadful tears, remembering how my Mamá Ana had died from this dreaded illness. I feared I would be alone again, like my six year old self, all those years before.

Thank God, once again the surgery was successful. The surgeon was able to extract the entire tumor. Radiation therapy followed, and the oncologist waved chemotherapy as unnecessary. After five years of close monitoring, both the surgeon and oncologist declared Mercie cancer-free—not long before I wrote this.

Aftermath

So, my Mercie faced nearly twenty years of health struggles—and came out stronger every time. She continues busying herself with our rising coterie of grandchildren. She keeps pouring out love to everyone—fueled by the love she’s received from God, our kids, our grandkids, and me.

As I write this and tell her I'm writing part of her story she denies she has one. To her, she’s always stood in the background—behind my wins and our children’s—content to stay unseen and feel unimportant. Nothing's further from the truth. My story would've been impossible without her. She's the sun of my day, the love of my life, God's greatest gift to me.

Later this year we'll celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary. Along with the 4 years we dated, we've spent a whole lifetime together. In fact, the life I've narrated in these memoirs are mostly the "happily ever after" years from our first encounter. I pray the Lord who brought us together gives us a fruitful old age—filled with deeper love and continued presence for our kids and grandkids. And, who knows? Even for our great grandchildren. Amen.

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