Yocón was a community of ordinary and extraordinary people alike. There were no telephones or modern communication devices — only walkie-talkies and a few companies with shortwave radios. Whatever news you received came straight from the mouth of someone who had seen or heard something worth sharing. There were few secrets in town, and those that remained hidden were better off staying that way.
Thanks to the Spanish conquistadors, who centuries earlier had killed the men and violated the women in the name of Christianity, to what they deemed uncivilized tribes, Honduras had become a predominantly Catholic nation. Its people were, and remain, strong believers in a God of love and miracles. At the time I lived there, I was a Christian myself — though teetering on the edge of losing my faith. For that reason, I sometimes found certain local beliefs difficult to accept, dismissing them as little more than superstition. And yet there were moments, certain events, that left no room for easy explanation. Moments where the only word that seemed to fit was “miracle.”
As one of only a handful of gringos who actually lived in Yocón, I quickly got to know the people who mattered in town. Because I offered free medicine at the clinic, I eventually met folks from neighboring villages as well. Among them was an older woman who made her living selling eggs. I bought a dozen from her on two occasions, but each time half of them were old and rotten, so I stopped. After that, whenever I saw her coming down the path, I did what most of the townspeople did — I found somewhere else to be. I felt sorry for her, but not sorry enough to keep buying bad eggs. She lived alone in a small shack just outside of town, an ordinary woman largely ignored by the community — until the night of the miracle.
Stevey was the nine-year-old son of my neighbor. I hadn’t known he existed until I stopped by one afternoon to drop off cough medicine the family had requested for him. Stevey had muscular dystrophy. Because he required constant care, his father rarely worked outside the home; instead, he ran a small bar out of their house—a place for local men to come in and knock back a shot or two of homemade brew before heading home to their families. Stevey lived in his own quiet world, content to crawl along the dirt floor and beg for scraps of food. Most of the time, he went unnoticed. I don’t believe he was ever mistreated, and though it may sound harsh to say he spent his days on a dirt floor, he never seemed to mind it. He rarely sought affection from anyone, and little was offered in return — with one exception.
Maria was a middle-aged woman who lived in the house directly across from the tavern. A single mother of two, she was a strong and outspoken voice for women’s rights in the community. Her husband had been killed in a gunfight a few years before I arrived. She was respected by most and quietly feared by a few of the more aggressive cowboys who were known to take their frustrations out on their wives. Whenever Maria had the time, she would cross the road and sit with Stevey, offering him the kind of tenderness that few others bothered to give. If I’m honest, I think she needed those visits as much as he did. Stevey spent the entirety of his short life on the floor of that tavern — until the morning of the miracle.
A cancer diagnosis is devastating, no matter where in the world it falls. In the United States, it means months of testing, bloodwork, specialists, and treatment plans — and enormous expense. In Honduras at that time, the protocol was far simpler and far more brutal: go home and die. I had already watched one of the older women in Yocón starve herself peacefully, her family gathered around her until the very end. I had offered intravenous fluids, and she had smiled at me with genuine warmth and declined. She didn’t want to prolong things any more than necessary. That kind of quiet courage was not easy to witness. It was even harder to accept when, a few months later, Maria received the same diagnosis.
Like the woman before her, Maria faced the news with a stillness that I found both humbling and heartbreaking. She stopped eating but continued her work as a community advocate for a few more weeks. I would stop in to visit her on my way to or from the clinic. She had already made arrangements for her two children, but her thoughts kept returning to Stevey. We talked about getting him a wheelchair or perhaps building him a small enclosed play area in the yard. Every conversation circled back to the same unanswerable question: who would love him the way she did? I tried to offer encouragement. We both knew the answer.
They came for me at six in the morning and told me she had had a terrible night and was asking for me. I went to her before heading to the clinic and sat with her for a while. She drifted in and out of consciousness but acknowledged my presence. At one point, she drew a slow, deep breath and opened her eyes.
“Wayne,” she said, “I have decided — when I get to Heaven, I will go to God and tell Him I want Stevey with me.”
I smiled, imagining her doing exactly that, marching up to the throne with her hands on her hips. “I am sure He will listen to you,” I said.
She closed her eyes again and whispered, almost to herself: “I will make Him listen.”
She never regained consciousness. She died later that morning. After finishing at the clinic, I went to the house and spent the entire night there, along with most of the community, as is the custom in Yocón. The following morning, the whole village walked her casket through the streets and laid her to rest in the cemetery on the hill overlooking the town.
It was nearly noon by the time we returned, and everyone was exhausted and ready to sleep, when the death bell tolled again. Stevey had been found dead in his bed — the bed where his family had left him while they attended Maria’s funeral.
Coincidence? An act of God? I still haven’t decided. But as sad as this story is, it doesn’t end there.
Remember the egg lady?
We gathered again — this time at Stevey’s house — to keep vigil through the night, as custom required. The house had been hastily prepared: benches carried in from the school; bed sheets hung along the walls to section off the bar and cover anything that seemed out of place. People filed in quietly and took their seats. Coffee was being prepared. Everyone was running on almost no sleep, and the room had fallen into a heavy, subdued silence. Someone yawned, and it spread around the room like a wave.
The egg lady stretched out her arms and leaned back — into what she clearly assumed was a wall. It wasn’t. There was a thump, and then two legs appeared in the air, waving.
The whole room said Oh! in perfect unison — and then, to everyone’s surprise, including their own, broke out laughing.
The laughter died down quickly, and people composed themselves, relieved that she wasn’t hurt. But something had gotten into me. No matter what I did, I kept breaking into laughter again. I’d get myself under control, and then another wave would hit. After about fifteen minutes, Stevey’s father came over and quietly suggested that perhaps I didn’t need to stay. I left, red-faced and thoroughly embarrassed to have been, in effect, removed from a child’s funeral.
In the days that followed, whenever the egg lady came around, I bought every egg she had — partly as penance for my foolishness, and partly because I had genuinely felt for her all along. The extra income allowed her to buy more chickens, and before long, she was selling fresh eggs regularly. Her life improved, in its small way.
I suppose that counts for something.