Signs of the Season
One evening during the summer of 1997, Debbie Cruikshank and her 13-year-old daughter, Rachel, were lying on the floor reading magazines. Debbie turned onto her stomach—and in that moment her entire life changed. “I could feel a sharp pain inside, like I had fallen on a rock,” she recalls. Within a month she was facing the frim diagnosis of ovarian cancer.
Her shocked children closed ranks around her, loving her through the unfamiliar territory of doctors, machines and chemotherapy. Her husband did the same, but he felt helpless and longed to do more. One day, desperate and angry, Mark replaced the signs on the marquees of the two auto transmission shops he owns in Chicago. Instead of the usual advertisements for lube jobs and repairs, he carefully spelled out another message, one that he hoped passersby would take seriously: PLEASE PRAY FOR OUR DEBBIE, THAT GOD WILL CURE THE CANCER.
At first, Debbie was embarrassed by her husband’s hopeful gesture. “I’m a private person,” she says, “and I didn’t think the whole world should know about my problems.” But she was too caught up in her own battle with hair loss, fatigue and fear—always the fear—that she gave it little thought. Would the treatments work? Would she ever feel better? And what would Christmas be like this year, if she was too sick to participate or, worse, gone?
Then, one by one, people of all races, faiths and ages began to appear in Mark’s shops, united by a common desire to help. “I saw the sign,” each would say. “Tell Debbie we’re praying.”
“We didn’t know most of them,” Debbie says. “But they sent rosaries and Mass cards and medals” (which non-Catholic Debbie shared with a friend of her daughter’s who was also fighting cancer), “as well as cookies, cards, flowers….Some cancer survivors wrote encouraging letters.” She felt wrapped in hugs, sometimes even buoyant. Could prayer do all this? Could prayer do even more?
In mid-December Debbie underwent another round of tests. She knew it would be difficult waiting until after the holidays for the results. But at least she was here, and that was something to be grateful for. However, the Friday before Christmas the phone rang. “Mom, it’s the doctor!” her older daughter called.
The doctor. It must be bad news. Debbie’s heart raced as she picked up the phone. Then tears filled her eyes. The tests were completely clear. There was no sign of cancer.
That was why, on Christmas Eve, Mark Cruikshank almost didn’t make it home in time for church. He had been visiting both his businesses, changing the signs. The people who had reached out to Debbie deserved to know what their prayers had accomplished, he thought, especially on this holiest of nights.
PRAISE GOD, DEBBIE IS WINNING HER BATTLE WITH CANCER, Mark posted on the first marquee. Their troubles might not be over, but the Lord would give them the courage to face whatever lay ahead. But as he took down letters at the second shop, gratitude so filled his heart that there was only one way to express it.
MERRY CHRISTMAS, he spelled, for all the world to see. MIRACLES STILL HAPPEN.
© 1998 Joan Wester Anderson www.joanwanderson.com Originally published in Woman’s Day Magazine
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I just finished reading your book In The Arms of Angels…. Loved it…. I just lost my mother to pancreatic cancer and your book was very comforting….Thank You… Joanne